


Ignis Fatuus (Foolish Fire)

by baeconandeggs, koizoras (parkchanyeol)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, BAE2017, Drama, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 13:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11059698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baeconandeggs/pseuds/baeconandeggs, https://archiveofourown.org/users/parkchanyeol/pseuds/koizoras
Summary: When Baekhyun falls through a wishing well and plunges headfirst into an unknown world, he finds himself walking through an incredible dream of magical civilisations, myths come to reality, a life on the road, maybe even love. And though all dreams must come to an end, surely all he has to do is trust in his guiding light — and believe it'll give him his happy ending.





	Ignis Fatuus (Foolish Fire)

**Author's Note:**

> Author: anonymous  
> Prompt#: 357  
> Title: Ignis Fatuus (Foolish Fire)  
> Word Count: 23,084  
> Side Pairing(s): none  
> Rating: PG  
> Disclaimer: The celebrities' names/images are merely borrowed and do not represent who the celebrities are in real life. No offense is intended towards them, their families or friends. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this fictional work. No copyright infringement is intended.
> 
> Author's Note: Dear prompter, thank you for inspiring me. I feel like I didn’t do your prompt justice, but still — hope it doesn’t disappoint (too much)! Finishing this was quite a struggle for me, so to everyone here: thank you so much for dedicating your time to read this, I hope you enjoy <3

**I.**  
  
Along the deserted coast, black sand stretched out to an endless sea, water swept up into waves by a fierce, cold wind.  
  
At the edge of sand and tundra, Baekhyun scrambled over a rocky outcrop towards the open sea, sending gravel sliding and crunching in his wake. Daylight was almost completely gone, a slight sliver of amber at the edge of the horizon providing him with the light he needed to find his way. Coming to the coast at dusk was almost a daily routine for Baekhyun. He’d lived near the sea all his life. He loved losing himself to the unrestrained power of the ocean, loved immersing himself in the roar of the waves and the cold rush of wind.  
  
Today, though, he’d been held up in the shop before closing, and he’d almost missed the sunset. He’d managed to make his way to the shore several miles north of where he usually went, and perched himself several metres away from the water’s edge, watching as deep violet waves barrelled against the jagged boulders of ice that had drifted ashore, growing higher and more forceful with each successive current.  
  
Further up and down the coast, there wasn’t a soul to be seen. The people in Baekhyun’s town were superstitious, and they’d passed down stories for generations — tales of elves, trolls, and countless other creatures they believed lived concealed in their midst. One of the most popular myths was the tale of the whitewater men — mysterious humanoid apparitions, Grim Reapers of a kind, that came from the sea at the close of day and took innocents with them, never to be seen again. The villagers of the valley all feared the whitewater men, and consequently kept well away from the sea from sunset till sunrise.  
  
Baekhyun, however, had never believed the stories. He’d sat by the ocean himself, day after day, and he’d never once seen any whitewater men. The myths were all made-up, fanciful ideas the people created to distract themselves from the monotony of life in the valley. In his twenty odd years of life, nobody had ever left or arrived at the island. According to the village chiefs, it had been this way for as long as anyone could remember — the valley was all the villagers knew, and whether there was a world beyond the island was doubtful. Baekhyun personally believed that there was more out there, but none of them could leave — the seas were too rough, and the village had yet to build a boat sturdy enough to withstand the waters.  
  
The last of the sun sank below the horizon, and the distant lights of the village came on one by one. Baekhyun knew that he should be heading on back to the amphitheatre for the nightly sacrifice, but as he turned to leave, he spotted something in the space behind the natural arch. Someone had built a structure out of rocks, and it was just out of his line of sight.  
  
Baekhyun stood up and skirted around the base of the inland cliff, heading towards the arch. As he approached the structure, he realised that it was a well — the old-fashioned kind of wishing well, with a cylindrical base and stone roof. Strange, he thought, that a well would be able to draw freshwater from a place so close to the sea.  
  
It was only when he got much nearer that he heard it. The voice.  
  
Baekhyun stood in front of the well, and the familiarity of the voice had his mind reeling in shock. Because the voice coming from the depths of the well, where no voice should be able to come from, was the soft, velvety voice of the boy who had wandered lost on this shore all those years ago.  
  
He could still remember his face, every detail of it. He hadn’t given a name, and he’d only been around for a few weeks, but Baekhyun could never forget that memory.  
  
Baekhyun leaned over and peered cautiously into the well. There was nothing but dark water, its surface too far down for Baekhyun to see clearly. Yet the voice continued to speak.  
  
“We shouldn’t have come into the wood. Not this way.”  
  
What wood? Baekhyun looked around in all directions, but there was nothing — no one — in sight.  
  
Another voice took over. “Like we had a choice. We’re lucky if we don’t get vaporised, showing up to court this late.”  
  
“We could’ve gone by the marshlands if we’d left earlier.” The familiar voice answered, but it was trailing off, getting softer as it spoke.  
  
Baekhyun leaned over the well, straining to hear. The sky was dark now, the moon hanging on the horizon.  
  
“Oh my god. It’s that well.” This voice was different from the previous two, sharper and higher-pitched.  
  
What happened next would always remain crystal-clear in Baekhyun’s memory.  
  
He hadn’t leaned far, but somehow his cheek touched cold water. Suddenly an invisible force was seizing hold of his entire body, sucking him into the well like a vacuum. Instinctively, Baekhyun grabbed hold of the basin’s edges, but it was fruitless. The power of the force lifted his feet clean off the ground and dragged him head-first into freezing dark water.  
  
Baekhyun’s entire body tensed, muscles seizing up from the cold. Desperately, he kicked out and flailed his arms, hitting the rough sides of the column. This wasn’t normal water — it was ice cold, unnaturally cold, and seemed to be purging him of his strength. He clutched at the sides of the well, but couldn’t grip onto anything — the edges of the basin were so high up, the circle of sky a mile away. How could he possibly have touched the water from way up there? The voices from before were louder now, all talking over each other, crowding up into his ears as though a hundred people were shouting at once.  
  
As he struggled, strength sapped away from his limbs. _I’m going to die here_ , he thought in despair. There was no way he could scale the walls. A cloud of panic was slowly descending over his mind, blocking out all coherent thought. He screamed for help, but the sound seemed to fade before it could even escape the mouth of the well, and there wouldn’t be anyone around for miles anyway.  
  
He thought he might’ve died even before he suffocated, because there was no pressure, no weight pressing on his lungs. There was just the oddest lurch of gravity, the feeling of his life energy being ripped from its foundations. _This is where my life ends_ , he thought. _Near the sea, but yet so far, and in the most painfully cruel way possible._  
  
Then his thoughts tapered off, and he sank under the surface to drown.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**II.**  
  
The side of his face slammed against hard earth. Baekhyun flinched, wincing slightly in pain, and realised the ground beneath him was rough and damp, sort of like a mossy carpet. He was… alive?  
  
Baekhyun’s eyes flew open, and he drew in a deep breath, body still trembling from the remnants of shock and cold. The first thing he saw was open sky — lingering traces of purple fading to the deep blue of night. He was lying on a bed of grass, and next to him, rising out of the ground, was a wishing well. Greying brick overgrown with vines, a peaked roof — the very same one he’d drowned in only moments ago.  
  
He hadn’t been anywhere near grass. It wasn’t cold anymore; the air was temperate, almost balmy. And he’d just drowned, but his clothes and hair were inexplicably dry.  
  
Was this the afterlife?  
  
Slowly, Baekhyun sat up, propping himself against the base of the well. He was in some sort of forest clearing, and belatedly, he realised that he had company. Several figures, all wearing dark travelling cloaks, stood at the edge of the clearing. They were talking to one another, speaking with the same voices he’d heard coming from the well.  
  
One of them approached, and Baekhyun instinctively crouched into an upright position, trying to assume a defensive stance. As though sensing his unease, the guy stopped in his tracks, keeping a safe distance between them. “H-hello.”  
  
From where he stood, Baekhyun could just about make out the guy’s face. It _was_ him. Much older, but definitely the same guy. Baekhyun stared, stunned and disbelieving, into a pair of wide, strangely familiar eyes.  
  
“Uh, Kyungsoo,” someone said. “We kind of have to get out of here.” There were three of them: all guys, as far as Baekhyun could tell — at the edge of the forest, shifting restlessly under bulky cloaks. Their eyes constantly darted around, as though scanning for danger. “We can’t help him.”  
  
“No, wait,” the familiar guy — Kyungsoo — cut in, still staring at Baekhyun as though he was a ghostly apparition. “We have to take this guy with us.”  
  
Baekhyun finally found his voice. “It’s you, isn’t it?” he managed, voice cracking slightly.  
  
“We have to what?” one of the other guys asked, like he hadn’t even heard Baekhyun.  
  
“I know him.” Kyungsoo stepped forward out of the shadows, and Baekhyun was too taken aback to react. “You’re from that village, where I got lost. You helped me.”  
  
Baekhyun nodded haltingly. “I remember.”  
  
“Baekhyun,” he said, the corners of his mouth lifting into a slight smile.  
  
The guy who’d spoken earlier stalked towards them, crossing the clearing in a few large strides. He stared pointedly at Baekhyun, gaze unfriendly and almost aggressive. “We. Need. To. Leave,” he said, his expression a mix of incredulous and annoyed. “If you want to keep him, bring him. Now.”  
  
Kyungsoo nodded without taking his eyes off Baekhyun. “Come on. We have to get out of the woods before it gets dark.” Angry-guy just looked at Kyungsoo in exasperation, then turned around and headed off into the forest with the two others.  
  
Baekhyun felt hopelessly lost. “Uh, no? I need to go back.”  
  
“No chance of that,” Kyungsoo said, even as Baekhyun took a few steps towards the well and looked into its depths. It was bone dry. Even in the dim light, he could see a thin layer of mud crusting up at the bottom. “That’s not how things work in this wood. The magic here is always temporary.”  
  
“Get moving, Kyungsoo,” the guy from earlier bellowed, already a good twenty metres away.  
  
Kyungsoo grabbed hold of Baekhyun’s arm and started pulling him away from the well, towards the forest. “It’s dangerous in here. We have to get out before night falls completely. Follow us.”  
  
Against his better judgement, Baekhyun gave a last, helpless look at the dried-out well, then turned and let Kyungsoo pull him into the forest. _Where was he and what was happening?_  
  
Kyungsoo broke into a run almost immediately, hurrying to catch up with the three guys who’d pulled ahead. He was pushing through thick webs of tree branches, and they snapped back to hit Baekhyun in the face as he followed blindly, barely seeing in the semi-darkness. The path was uneven, and Baekhyun reached out to feel ahead of him with his hands as he moved, struggling not to stumble over the roots or to fall into the crevices. There was an odd sense of sensory deprivation, like he was isolated with only the sounds of heavy breathing, the rustling of leaves as they pushed through the brambly vegetation, and the balmy inhale of humid evening air.  
  
The journey seemed to last forever, the sky gradually darkening as they went. Baekhyun had to sprint flat-out just to keep up, every muscle in his body screaming desperately for help, and in the physical pain his mind seemed to grow numb. His initial, paralysing shock began to fade, and slowly the unbelievable reality of his situation began to take hold.  
  
He gathered his thoughts enough to speak. “Where are we going?” He was panting hard, almost tripping in his exhaustion.  
  
Kyungsoo was perfectly unfazed, moving with ease through the forest as though he’d been doing it all his life. “The Seelie Court. We’re almost there.”  
  
“What’s the Seelie Court?”  
  
“It’s just up ahead.”  
  
They broke through a final row of trees, and Kyungsoo finally slowed to a stop. They’d arrived before a narrow path paved in white pebble, lined on both sides with manicured lavender bushes. Ahead in the distance, a towering hornbeam hedge stretched endlessly in either direction, and at the end of the path was a hedge archway, strongly backlit by a warm golden glow. For some reason, just looking at the doorway made the hair on Baekhyun’s arms stand on end.  
  
Kyungsoo’s three companions were waiting for them on the path. “We made it after all,” one of them said. “Hurry, we’re probably almost late.”  
  
They followed the path, Baekhyun trailing slightly behind the group. When he reached the end of the path and stood before the glowing archway, Baekhyun could hear music, singing, and clear laughter like bells, drifting from just behind the door.  
  
He still couldn’t see anything of what lay beyond other than that blinding light, and was almost afraid to enter, but Kyungsoo walked ahead and pulled him along, grip firm on his arm. Baekhyun cringed, bracing himself as he stepped into the light, but it was just like passing through a mist — the faintest coolness on his skin, and then he emerged on the other side of the door, in the heart of the Seelie Court.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Baekhyun’s senses were immediately assaulted by the _brightness_ of their surroundings. They were standing in a large meadow, and even though night had fallen, everything was washed out in blinding golden light. He blinked, trying to adjust, trying to take everything in.  
The first thing Baekhyun realised was that they weren’t out in the open anymore. He couldn’t see the sky — it was completely blocked from view by the canopy of the most mind-bogglingly enormous tree he had ever seen. It stood at the far end of the meadow, the width of its colossal trunk stretching the entire length of the field, obscured in patches by the foliage of smaller trees growing around its base. There were doorways carved into its roots, light emanating from windows further up the trunk, staircases complete with railings carved into the exterior of the bark. On some of the low-hanging branches, people were sitting out in small gardens, . The tree was an entire living, breathing community in its own right.  
  
He couldn’t tell where the light was coming from. It seemed to be just _present_ , filling the meadow without any particular source, a multitude of microscopic particles drifting and spinning in the air.  
  
The meadow itself was buzzing with energy, filled with the strangest and most diverse collection of guests, seemingly people of all shapes and sizes. Baekhyun’s eyes came to rest on one of the girls standing near their group, and his brain froze.  
  
Were those _wings_?  
  
“Irene is in the throne room,” one of Kyungsoo’s friends said casually, unfastening his cloak to reveal a satiny maroon suit. “We’ll be wanted in court.”  
  
“Um, Baekhyun?”  
  
Baekhyun spun around, realising that Kyungsoo was trying to get his attention. He’d pulled off his own cloak too, and was wearing a matching suit in a slightly deeper bordeaux. “I’m — we’re — going up to the Queen’s chambers now.”  
  
Baekhyun cleared his throat. “Where?”  
  
Kyungsoo gestured up at the tree, and Baekhyun craned his neck to see. He was pointing to a large open hallway with an equilateral arched roof, carved into the uppermost section of trunk before the thick canopy of leaves took over. It was so high up, all that was visible from the ground was a row of shining gold columns. “Okay,” he said faintly.  
  
“You can’t come in with us,” Kyungsoo continued. “Would you wait over at the faerie circle?”  
  
The _faerie_ circle. Baekhyun followed his gaze to a glade cordoned off at the far left of the meadow. Its entrance, a doorway within a mass of twisting vines, was marked by a pair of flaming torches, and Baekhyun could see more fire flickering within its depths.  
  
Reflexively, he nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Sure.”  
  
“Baekhyun.” Suddenly Kyungsoo reached out and took hold of his hands, holding them together within warm palms. “I know this must seem bewildering. You must feel like you’re going crazy. But you helped me out. I promise, I _swear_ , I’ll get you home too.” He looked straight at him, then, with those wide innocent eyes and that soft smile, and Baekhyun had to trust him.  
  
He nodded subtly, and Kyungsoo’s smile widened in relief. “There’s a party on tonight, so you won’t be asked who you are. Just wait in there for us and we’ll be out in a while.” Kyungsoo gave him a last reassuring pat on the arm, and then he turned to head towards the tree, leaving Baekhyun standing alone at the entrance of the meadow.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
As Baekhyun crossed the meadow towards the arch, soft leather shoes sinking into a carpet of plush grass, he felt like he was walking through a sunlit dream.  
  
In his dream, he floated past crowds and crowds of people. Women in gauzy skirts, their diaphanous dragonfly-like wings glimmering with dew. Stern-looking men with skin of rich nut-browns and olive greens, their catlike eyes glowing, leaves and vines entwined in long silver hair. Short humanoid creatures dressed in silk jewel tones, clustered around little tables, sharing spoils and dancing to lively flute music. And there were large creatures, too — supersized humanoids, their booming laughter audible from halfway across the green.  
  
As he walked, nobody stopped him to ask why he was here. Nobody stared like he was out of place. Everyone was celebrating, lost in a cloud of joyful feasting, dancing and music.  
  
Nobody questioned him as he walked through the archway and into the faeries’ circle. As the name implied, the glade was circular — ringed by benches arranged in a concentric pattern, a stage occupying the centre spot. Most of the seats were taken by the time Baekhyun arrived, and he climbed to the uppermost circle and settled in a vacant spot.  
  
It was dim in the glade compared to the meadow, but the central arena was illuminated by a ring of flaming torches, and the dark greenery framing the walls was spotted with a million glowing fireflies. The roof of foliage was absent within the walls of the glade, and Baekhyun could see stars overhead. In the front row of seats, a group of women — or faeries — were getting ready to go onstage, chattering excitedly with each other, their skirts and wings shifting opalescent as they moved.  
  
Then one of the faeries floated down to the center of the arena and the chatter of the audience quietened, fading into scattered applause.  
  
“For the next dance, our guest Prince Chanyeol of the royal court of Aurum will be playing for us.” She gestured with both hands at someone in the front row, and inclined her head in respect.  
  
The prince stood up, a lone figure against a backdrop of greenery and fireflies. He was tall and thin, with hair a flame-brushed orange, swept back away from his face. Even from where Baekhyun sat in the back rows, he could make out bold, yet pretty features — he was aggressively handsome, beautiful in a way that knew no subtlety. His ears, slightly pointed, peeked out from beneath silk-smooth hair. If it wasn’t for his conspicuously human colouring, Baekhyun would’ve wondered if he was a faerie himself.  
  
The prince crossed the stage and picked up a wooden instrument shaped roughly like a guitar, seating himself in front of the rest of the ensemble. In the stands, the faeries filed out towards the centre of the stage and assumed their starting positions.  
  
Then the music started, a low haunting motif that kept repeating itself, weaving through the sound in different textures and different pitches. The faeries’ dance mimicked the rousing energy of the instrumentals, building towards a climax where they burst into a rich harmony of song. As the faeries sang, the prince was looking towards the skies. There was a distant expression in his eyes, like he wasn't really there at all, though his fingers kept strumming and his slight smile told of joy of the purest kind.  
  
Baekhyun had always loved music. He’d used to linger behind after mandatory meetings in the valley’s enclave, to secretly play on the old piano in the backroom. He’d used to sit out on the coastal cliffs, singing songs he’d improvised himself, where nobody else could hear him. But they hadn’t had much of a music culture in the valley, and this was the first time he’d felt the full extent of its rapture. Along with the captivation, there was a keen sense of chrysalism, like he’d been cocooned in a web of magic the faeries weaved with their song. Their fingertips painted pictures in the air, their motion carved images on his soul.  
  
And through the magic, the hum of guitar strings cut crystal clear, a hypnotic rhythmic progression that had Baekhyun steadily slipping out of focus. He blinked, attempting to refocus on the mesmerising visuals, but the prince’s playing was like a current, gently and relentlessly drawing him back in. The refrain persisted, getting bolder and clearer with each repetition. As the song drew to its close, Baekhyun finally snapped out of his trance to realise he’d been staring straight at the prince, and the prince was looking straight back at him.  
  
The hair on the back of Baekhyun’s neck was standing straight up.  
  
He caught the faint impression of a slight smile and amused glint in the prince’s eyes before managing to tear his eyes away.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
“So, Kyungsoo got lost in your world, and you helped him out.”  
Baekhyun nodded. He’d explained himself at least thrice over the course of the last hour, and was getting pretty tired, but figured he’d better play along while he was still trapped here. “I didn’t help him _get out_ , but I did help him. I’m sure Kyungsoo can give you a better idea of what happened.”  
  
He was sitting on a hard wooden floor, surrounded by bunk beds and stacked crates filled with assorted possessions. After the group had finished whatever business they had with the Seelie Queen, they’d picked Baekhyun up and brought him back through the wood, out to a large caravan parked by the side of a country road — where they were now gathered.  
  
He’d learned the names of Kyungsoo’s companions. The guy who’d been impatient and skeptical earlier was Yixing. Jongin was the owner of the second voice he’d heard coming from the well. Sehun was the tall one with the incredibly angular face.  
  
Now, Yixing hurried from storage crate to dressing cabinet, pulling out a spare bed and setting up fresh bedding and pillows with Kyungsoo’s help. Sehun and Jongin were sprawled out on one of the bunk beds, looking down at where Baekhyun sat on the floor.  
  
“So, Baekhyun, do you dance? Sing? Acrobatics, or any other showy skills?”  
  
Baekhyun shook his head. “No. Well, I sing sometimes, but I’m not any good.”  
  
“Let us be the judge of that.” Sehun flipped over and sat up on the bed, crossing his legs. “Sing us something.”  
  
Baekhyun glanced over to Kyungsoo for help, but the latter was still busy shifting furniture around. “Uh, okay.” Baekhyun closed his eyes and tried to remember one of the songs he’d composed. He began singing, starting with a few hesitant notes and increasing his volume as his confidence grew.  
  
When he finished and opened his eyes, Jongin shook his head and clapped loudly. “Well, that’s that,” Sehun said with a shrug. “He can join Kyungsoo.”  
  
“Since we’re doing this, we should probably try to pick up a better bed somewhere tomorrow,” Jongin added, turning to face Yixing. “We’re going to be on the road for a while, it can get quite bumpy.”  
  
“Aren’t we passing by a mill tomorrow?” Yixing asked.  
  
“It won’t be necessary,” Baekhyun cut in. Everyone fell silent, staring at him. “I’m leaving. Tonight.”  
  
At that, Sehun burst out laughing.  
  
“You’re going back into the Forest?” Jongin asked, looking Baekhyun up and down skeptically. “Can someone explain to him, please?”  
  
“You can’t go back in there now.” Kyungsoo’s tone was firm. “Obviously we can’t actually stop you, but I said I would help you. These woods are never safe after dark. _Especially_ for someone travelling alone.”  
  
“There didn’t seem to be anything in there when we passed through earlier.” They’d seen lots of trees, but not a single animal. He supposed there might be a chance of crazies loitering in there at night, but he’d take his chances.  
  
“We were travelling as a group. It was before nightfall when we went to the court, and on the way out the faeries granted us safe passage from Thesor. We can’t guarantee anything if you go back in there now.”  
  
“And if I don’t go tonight, then what?” Baekhyun turned to face Kyungsoo. “When am I going to go back in there?”  
  
Kyungsoo paused. “We… need to consult with a magician before going back in there. If you want to live.”  
  
A… magician. “And where can we find one?”  
  
“We know one in Argentum.” Yixing dumped a heap of bedding and spare clothes onto the bed they’d set up. “We’re heading there, starting tomorrow. We’ll probably arrive in two weeks’ time.”  
  
_Two weeks_ , and that was just to reach the magician. It seemed they’d already decided, as they all got changed, climbed into bed and turned the lights out. Baekhyun put on the spare clothes Yixing lent him, lying obediently under the covers of the spare bed while he waited for the others to fall asleep.  
  
Inside, he was restless. Kyungsoo seemed trustworthy enough, and he’d said he would help Baekhyun, but wanted him to live with a group of strangers on the road for a month. The idea filled him with intense discomfort — he was essentially being taken as prisoner. He couldn’t be sure what these people would do to him once he was locked in a caravan with them crossing the land, putting miles between himself and the well. Between entrusting his life to a bunch of random guys and risking the forest, he’d have to choose the latter.  
  
He stayed as still as he could under the covers and waited for maybe an hour, until he was sure they were all out. Then he climbed out as quietly as he could, putting his clothes on over Yixing’s and slipping out of the caravan.  
  
The first thing that hit him was the temperature. It had been warm and temperate earlier, but the night air was strangely cold. Baekhyun thought he could remember the approximate direction; on the way back from the court, they’d passed through the clearing with the well again. They’d gone over a stream, followed it until it crossed a rocky vista, then wound their way through a path overgrown with vines till they’d hit the road he was now standing on.  
  
Still, everything seemed so much more eerie after dark. The trees seemed much taller, their foliage denser, and though Baekhyun couldn’t see anyone else around, moving shadows were passing between the thin trunks. He quickly found the rocky vista and followed it, getting his shoes sopping wet by the thin stream of water that was running over the rocks. But when he reached the end, instead of meeting with the stream, the water just glazed over the last of the boulders and disappeared into a crevice.  
  
_The magic here is always temporary_ , Kyungsoo had said. But he’d been talking about the wishing well. The stream was just part of the forest. Maybe he’d followed the vista in the wrong direction.  
  
Baekhyun retraced his steps, keeping closely to the path. It extended further in this direction, and he felt like he’d walked several miles by the time he arrived at the end. He was met with a steep drop-off, where the rocks crumbled into sand. He couldn’t see into the pit below, but it most definitely wasn’t the stream he was looking for.  
  
Where could it be?  
  
He tried to turn and head back along the path, but this time the ground seemed strangely tilted, like he was walking up a steep incline. The pebbles slid and crunched underfoot as he tried to climb upwards, almost as though trying to hinder his progress on purpose. Baekhyun was forced to cling to the larger boulders lining the sides of the path, and he pressed on, struggling to put one foot in front of the other. With each step he took, his feet kept sinking deeper into the rocky gravel, until he decided to abandon the impossible task and try to climb the boulders instead.  
  
Shaking with effort, he managed to pull himself up the side of the path, and lay on the ground, shivering. The woods were completely dark now, his surroundings illuminated only by the light of the full moon. To his right lay the drop into the rocky path, and to his left was a vast grove of seemingly endless conifers, spaced evenly in uniform rows. The stream was nowhere to be seen.  
  
He’d been in denial till that moment, but as he slowly lost grip on his resolve, the panic began to settle in. In his chest, his heartbeat seemed to be getting harder and slower. Baekhyun struggled to stand up, but when he did he realised he couldn’t even see the path of vines he’d taken to get here. It had disappeared clean off the landscape, like it never existed.  
  
A wave of nausea rose up in Baekhyun’s throat, and hopelessness threatened to swallow him whole.  
  
And then at that moment, in the distance, he heard the sound of hooves hitting the earth, getting louder as it approached.  
  
Baekhyun’s first instinct was to run. But it definitely sounded like horses — murderers or robbers didn’t usually operate on horseback. And where could he run to? He couldn’t go back into the rocks. The climb had drained every last drop of energy out of him, his legs were buckling even as he stood — he wouldn’t last another minute in the accursed place. As for the level ground he stood on now, there was nothing but sparsely-growing conifers as far as his eyes could see. There wasn’t a single place to hide.  
  
He could only hope it was a friendly party. In a split second, he made his decision, opening his mouth to call out. “ _HELP_!” He yelled as loudly as he could, hoping and praying with every fibre of his being.  
  
Fortunately or unfortunately, the riders seemed to hear him, because they changed their direction, and now he could see the vague outline of a group of people heading towards him on horseback.  
  
“ _STOP_!” The rider at the front of the group shouted at the others, and all the horses came abruptly rearing to a stop, just a few yards away. Somebody turned on a lantern, and Baekhyun blinked out the glare, the riders slowly coming into focus. They were all men, and the one at the front was dismounting his horse, a black cloak shrouding his tall figure. He took the lamp from one of the others, and approached Baekhyun slowly. “Traveller, are you lost?” He spoke in a low, clear voice.  
  
It was the prince from the glade. Prince… Chanyeol?  
  
Baekhyun nodded, almost crying in relief. “Yes.” He sounded less shaken than he felt.  
  
The prince held out the lantern to get a better look at Baekhyun’s face, and though his eyes widened with what might have been recognition, he didn’t voice it out. “How did you get here?”  
  
What a question. Baekhyun briefly considered, then decided to keep it short. “I came from the Seelie Court.” That the prince already knew.  
  
“Were you looking for something?” The prince asked. Baekhyun couldn’t see the expression in his eyes, but his voice was calm, tone perfectly even.  
  
“No,” he said. “I got lost trying to find my way back to the road. My caravan is parked there.”  
  
The prince nodded. “That’s not far from here. We’ll take you back. You shouldn’t be in the woods alone at this time.” He extended a hand, and Baekhyun took hold of his outstretched palm. The skin was warm and rough, the strength in his arms reassuring as he reached out to support Baekhyun. His own legs felt strange, and he realised that his knees were shaking, threatening to give way once again. What exactly had the stone path done to him?  
  
One of the men behind the prince had dismounted, and approached Baekhyun, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll take him, your highness.”  
  
The prince nodded, and Baekhyun let the man steer him to his horse and help him up into the saddle. He’d often ridden, back home, but the horses had never been this big. The ground seemed awfully far away.  
  
The light from the lantern was extinguished, and the horses began to canter, racing through the straight lines of the grove.  
  
The journey back was over in a matter of minutes. Baekhyun was filled with relief, faint embarrassment at imposing himself, and regret that he hadn’t been able to find his way back. But for some reason, the crippling fear and dread had completely disappeared.  
  
When their horses came through the last of the trees to meet clear air and country road, the prince dismounted and walked over to Baekhyun’s horse to help him down. The other riders stayed mounted, waiting a short distance behind.  
  
The prince took hold of Baekhyun’s hand, encasing it within his own warm, broad palm, and the action filled Baekhyun with the strangest sense of security. He’d pushed back his hood and his face was now visible, shadowy in the dim light.  
  
Up close, there was something intimidating about him, something intense and almost unsettling about his gaze. Still, Baekhyun trusted him. “Is this your destination?” He spoke quietly, but his voice was deep and resonant, like restless currents under a calm sea.  
  
Baekhyun looked at the caravan parked on the road, and turned back to face him. “Yes… your highness,” he added.  
  
“Then I wish you good luck and safe travels.”  
  
Baekhyun’s eyes flickered downwards. “I’m sorry for any trouble I’ve caused. Thank you for helping me.”  
  
“I hope you don’t enter the woods alone at night again.”  
  
“I won’t,” Baekhyun said, and a faint half-smile flashed across the prince’s face. Then, just as abruptly, he let go, turning to walked back to his party. Baekhyun kept his head bowed — he wasn’t sure why, it felt respectful — as the prince mounted his ride and the entire group turned to head back into the dark forest.  
  
Once Baekhyun was alone, he headed back into the caravan, managing to slip into bed without waking any of the other sleeping guys. In spite of the exhaustion, he lay awake for a long time after, wondering — what in the world he was going to do now?  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**III.**  
  
To Baekhyun’s surprise, his days on the road seemed to race by, and he quickly felt himself settling into the group like he’d been with them all his life. They called themselves the strolling players, and they liked to do en-route performances while travelling between the big cities, where they would stop for days or weeks to fill odd jobs and pick up things that needed delivering. The players integrated Baekhyun seamlessly into their performances, working out choreography and sequences on the long journeys between villages, towns and cities.  
  
Performing came easily to him — just a few performances in he was freely leaping between platforms, flirting and interacting with audience members, hammering out impromptu riffs on the piano to match the beat of the drums and complement Kyungsoo’s amazingly agile singing. Unconsciously, Baekhyun began to assume the role of working up the crowd, pulling the energy levels higher. The audience loved him. He was a showmanship natural.  
  
He’d never had so much excitement in his life. His fears had been unfounded — the other guys were all friendly and laid-back, and they took him in like one of their own. Baekhyun came to respect them, not just as friends, but as performers. They were passionate about their work, and were always working on new songs, fresh choreography, scripts for interluding skits.  
  
They played all kinds of venues — from small courtyards to great halls and city plazas. While most of their venues were in human settlements, they also stopped in a giant’s valley, a goblin’s nest buried deep underground, and most memorably, an elven kingdom — an entire city built within the branches of a metallic tree, with a bark of stark white and leaves of gold and silver. The players had made a name for themselves over the years, and many an audience was keen to dine with them. Each night they were welcomed to a different feast or banquet, and they would taste the best food each region had to offer, then proceed to dance the night away in many a tavern or bar or town hall. While each member seemed to have individual connections inviting them to perform, Yixing was in charge of choosing and scheduling their shows, and Jongin responsible for mapping out routes.  
  
Amidst the merry-making, they were constantly on the move. At night they’d park their caravan at the roadside, and Baekhyun would sit out on the steps, stargazing. The terrain was largely mountainous, and they’d often stop along the side of a ravine, overlooking a gorge or a forest. Sometimes, staring up at the unfamiliar constellations, Baekhyun still felt like he was trapped in a fevered dream. He was meeting new people every day, and though he talked and flirted like the most personable version of himself, not once did he tell anyone that he wasn’t from this world.  
  
He still thought about drowning in the well, every day. The panic seizing his chest, the complete helplessness he’d felt. The thought alone was enough to send chills over his body.  
  
A voice spoke up from next to him, and Baekhyun jumped. “Are you alright? You’ve been looking really lonely.”  
  
He hadn’t even realised that Kyungsoo had joined him on the steps. He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’m alright.” He meant it. He didn’t feel any lonelier that he had been all the while. Solitude was how he lived his life.  
  
“Still thinking about going back?”  
  
“Of course,” Baekhyun blurted, then he realised how rude he sounded. “I mean, it’s not that I don’t appreciate you guys. I really am grateful. But it’s just… I have to go back, you know? It’s my duty. But home feels so far away, and I have no idea how to even start.”  
  
“Wasn’t so fun last time, huh.” Baekhyun stared at Kyungsoo, not quite understanding. “We know you snuck off on the first night. I don’t know how you managed to get out in one piece, but I guess you figured the magic in Thesor isn’t so easy to deal with.”  
  
“I almost died in there. I couldn’t even find the damn clearing. And I don’t know — I mean, you said the magic was temporary. But it must come back sometimes, since you came through the well too. When is it going to start working again?”  
  
Kyungsoo looked away, and his eyes were distant, jaw tense, brows pulled slightly together. It was that same expression he’d been wearing, back when Baekhyun had seen him for the very first time. Baekhyun had been maybe sixteen, back then, wandering alone in the mountainside forest near his home, when he’d come face-to-face with a teenaged boy, looking disoriented and very scared.  
  
Baekhyun hadn’t known what to do — according to the rules of his village, the first thing he should’ve done was to take Kyungsoo to the village elders, and they’d figure out what to do from there. But Kyungsoo had clutched onto his arm, explained that he’d come from somewhere far away, and pleaded with Baekhyun to help him. And he’d seemed so terrified and helpless, that Baekhyun had agreed.  
  
Kyungsoo had kept himself hidden within the forest, not emerging even once. Over the next few days, Baekhyun had returned faithfully in mornings and evenings to give Kyungsoo water and any leftover food he’d managed to scrounge. Then one day, without a word, inexplicably, Kyungsoo had vanished and Baekhyun had never seen him again.  
  
And now he was sitting right next to him, performing with him across the country, sleeping opposite him every night.  
  
“Well, I don’t know for sure, but I have an idea,” Kyungsoo began slowly. “Generally, the woods seem to follow the phases of the moon. The well could appear for you on the next full moon, but it might not take you where you want to go. It could appear for you two moons from now, or three. For me it was just one moon cycle, and I came right back through to here.”  
  
The moon in the sky was a waning gibbous, well on its way to passing the third quarter. “And we’ve been travelling for, what, twelve days? Will I be able to get back in there, one lunar cycle later?”  
  
Kyungsoo looked down. “Honestly, no. We have to stay in Argentum for maybe three weeks, to a month.”  
  
Baekhyun did the math. A cycle was around thirty days. Fourteen days of travel, twenty-eight in both directions if they took the same route back. A month in Argentum, that was fifty-eight. “But I’ll be back by the second cycle, right?”  
  
“Yes. We plan on returning to Aurum once we’re done in Ozmion — that’s the capital of Argentum.” Kyungsoo rested a tentative hand on Baekhyun’s shoulder. “By then we should’ve consulted with a magician, who can tell you exactly what to do.”  
  
“And Aurum is where the forest is, right?” Baekhyun had to check.  
  
“Yes, the forest of Thesor is pretty close to the heart of Aurum. Don’t worry, Baekhyun, it’ll work out.”  
  
He couldn’t have known for sure, but Baekhyun felt comforted. It was good to have a plan; it gave him something to look towards, something to keep him going through the motions of their travelling and performing and partying.  
  
“So, Aurum and Argentum are the two main kingdoms in this area?” he asked.  
  
“Yeah. In our part of the world — the western continent — there are three main kingdoms. The third is Aspen.”  
  
“What’s it like there?”  
  
“It’s… less built up than the other two. The capital is located within a quarry, and it’s controlled by dwarves. They don’t really like humans, and they’re experts with machinery, so needless to say we don’t often go there.”  
  
The idea of a kingdom controlled by dwarves was kind of frightening. “Is Ozmion is controlled by humans, then?”  
  
Kyungsoo shook his head. “Faeries occupy the royal throne there. But there are a fair number of humans settled in Argentum, you don’t have to worry about it.”  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
The next morning, as the caravan kept rolling along the road, Baekhyun checked the schedule Yixing had tacked up on a wall in the caravan and found that they were due to perform at a wedding that night. The grooms, two wealthy Argentum residents named Lu Han and Kris, had also invited them to attend the ceremony which was was to be held at Lochhaven, a large estate a few hours from Ozmion.  
  
Jongin, who was sitting out front with the reins, turned the horses off the main road to navigate a series of smaller lanes. They arrived at Lochhaven as night fell, and joined a long line of carriages of all shapes and sizes, following a long path marked out by lampposts.  
  
Baekhyun didn’t know what he’d been expecting — maybe a ranch, or a large farmhouse of some kind. The house was simple and rectangular in form, constructed of whitened brick, looking out onto a manicured lawn and lake. He’d assumed the wedding would take place in a hall, but it seemed like the hosts had decided on an outdoor venue.  
  
They got off in the driveway, except for Jongin, who headed to the back to find a parking space for the horses.  
  
Out front, naiads were waltzing on the clear black surface of the lake, spinning and skating on their bare feet, the hems of their dresses brushing the water but never getting wet. The lawn itself was overgrown with long grass and dandelions, reaching up to the middle of Baekhyun’s calves. There were no tables laid out, just rows and rows of silver-backed benches, increasing in height as they extended further from the canopy of white lanterns and flowers that had been put up — presumably as a wedding arch.  
  
Most of the guests were already crossing the lawn and filing into seats. Sehun, Yixing and Kyungsoo were greeting people non-stop as they walked, hugging, shaking hands, asking people how they’d been. Baekhyun trailed behind, following his group as they slid onto a bench near the back.  
  
More guests started filling the row in front of them, and despite the upward incline of the seats, Baekhyun’s view was suddenly completely blocked by a black hooded figure. Disgruntled, he shifted slightly to the left, trying to find a clear line of sight.  
  
Then someone brushed past the black hooded figure to move into the aisle, and the hood slipped for a second, revealing a glint of orange hair and ears that stuck out. The guy quickly pulled his hood back up, but Baekhyun had already recognised his profile. Heck, he recognised those hands. He considered reaching out to tap him on the shoulder and confirm his identity, but abruptly the black hooded figure was standing up, along with everyone else at the wedding, as the grooms stepped out of the massive front doors of their fancy home.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
After the ceremony, the guests were ushered to the west wing of the house. The west wing was fronted by a sheltered conservatory and a circular garden, centred around a white gazebo.  
  
Food was served, and the guests began to mingle as the strolling players took the stage. It went just like any other show, except somewhat more formal. A small acapella choir was waiting in the wings as they descended, and Baekhyun was free to socialise and glutton out to his heart’s content. Kyungsoo struck up a conversation with the elven priestess who’d married the couple, and Baekhyun accepted a plate of tasters from a nearby server, settling down in the conservatory to start snacking.  
  
He’d only managed a couple of savoury pies before he noticed the black hooded figure from earlier walking towards the fringes of the garden, falling into shadow and slipping around the corner of the building.  
  
Right. The prince. Baekhyun wanted to thank him for rescuing him from the forest, but the guy definitely looked like he didn’t want to be recognised here, for whatever reason.  
  
After some thought, Baekhyun decided to go ahead anyway — he might not get another chance. He rose from his seat and walked back towards the front lawn, but there wasn’t anyone in sight. Then he caught a glimpse of movement near the east wing, near the marble arch, and approached as inconspicuously as he could, until he could hear the voices coming from the other side.  
  
“Treason.” It was the prince’s voice, soft and threatening. “If you think I’m going to fall for this, you’re delusional.”  
  
“The way we see it, you don’t have a choice, _highness_.”  
  
“You really don’t know what you’re dealing with, do you?”  
  
Somebody laughed. “I’d say it’s you who doesn’t know what he’s gotten into. Enough brave talk. You show up or your secret’s out.”  
  
“I’m doing no such thing. If you want your money, you’ll come when I call you.”  
  
There was a scuffle. Baekhyun shrank back reflexively, then cautiously peered around the side of the arch. Three men were surrounding the prince — one of them restraining him, another grabbing him by the collar, the third watching from a distance. They’d backed the prince up against the column of the arch, his hood pushed down and hanging around his shoulders.  
  
“Do I really have to repeat myself?” The man closest to the prince was angry now. He was a large man, towering over the prince. “Show up in two days. Or do you need threats to understand?”  
  
Despite his cornered position, the prince’s chin was lifted, and he looked his assailant straight in the eyes. “And where do you think you’re going to run to?”  
  
“Yeah, we’ll tell you.” The man grinned. “You’re really just asking for a beating, aren’t you?”  
  
Another scuffle, and a gasp, like someone had the air forcefully shoved out of their chest. He didn’t need to guess who that someone was.  
  
He had to break up the group before they actually went through with the beating. The man in front definitely looked capable of beating him unconscious, but Baekhyun could tell the other two weren’t fighters. They’d only been expecting to deal with one man, and most probably wouldn’t have backup. Distraction and deflecting attention it was, then.  
  
Baekhyun backed up slightly, adding weight to his footfalls, and stumbled into the arch with an arm on the wall for support. Behind the archway, the group of men — and the prince — stilled. Baekhyun counted to three, and then he emerged from behind the column, glancing from the men to the prince in confusion.  
  
“Could you tell me where the party is? I’m kinda lost,” he said.  
  
The man in front looked annoyed, but he didn’t loosen his grip on the prince. The third man who’d been standing a distance away advanced on him, and Baekhyun knew he was out of time. “Wait — aren’t you the prince of Aurum? What are you doing to him?”  
  
“Shut him up,” the first man snapped, and the man lunged out, but Baekhyun took off running in the direction of the west wing, shouting for help as he went. “ _IS ANYBODY THERE_?”  
  
“GET BACK HERE!” The first man bellowed from behind, and for a split second Baekhyun thought he might be talking to him, but when he spun around to check, the man’s two accomplices were darting off, sprinting towards the driveway. Ahead of Baekhyun, a few figures appeared around the corner of the house, walking towards the front lawn, searching for the source of the commotion. Baekhyun quickly shrank back into the shadow of the house, trying not to be too visible.  
  
Over at the arch, the first man spotted the search party, and he finally turned back to Chanyeol, growled out something Baekhyun couldn’t decipher, then let go and ran off into the night.  
  
The prince fell heavily onto his knees. Baekhyun rushed over and pulled him to his feet. “Quick, before people see you.” He tugged the prince’s hood back over his head, and pulled him around to hide behind the archway.  
  
The prince was standing upright again, catching his breath. “Are you rescuing me?” He asked, and for some inexplicable reason, he was _laughing_.  
  
Baekhyun kept an eye on the lawn. “Those people didn’t look like they wanted a friendly chat.”  
  
“I don’t need saving.”  
  
Baekhyun ignored him. The group of four or five were heading towards them now, two men jogging ahead of the rest. “They’re still coming. They’re going to recognise you. What do we do?”  
  
“They most likely won’t,” he said, but Baekhyun had a sudden idea. He shifted his position slightly, standing next to the arch so that he would be partially visible from the lawn, and then reached out to wrap his arms around the prince’s shoulders as tightly as he could. The prince’s hands came up hesitantly to wrap across Baekhyun’s back, solid and warm.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
Baekhyun pulled away just enough to look him straight in his eyes, and the prince’s eyelids fluttered open. Their foreheads were almost touching, so close he could see the smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose, feel his soft breaths against his cheeks. If he stretched up even the smallest degree, their lips would meet.  
  
The proximity had Baekhyun’s heart thudding in his throat, but he managed a grin. “Hiding you.” He prayed hard that none of his friends were among the search party.  
  
Sure enough, the footsteps approached, stopped for a few moments, then disappeared back to where they came from.  
  
“Smooth,” the prince breathed.  
  
They stayed in position for another tense minute, then Baekhyun finally stepped back, double-checking to make sure that the group was headed back to the party. The prince looked quite different from how he’d looked in the woods or in the faerie’s circle, dressed in commoner’s garb, alone and without the entourage of guards. He seemed almost approachable somehow, maybe because he was deliberately trying to go unnoticed.  
  
Baekhyun eyed him up and down, and dared to speak. “So, I guess you aren’t supposed to be here. Your highness,” he added quickly.  
  
The prince waved it away. “Don’t say that here. Correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t think you’re a citizen of Aurum.”  
  
“Then what should I call you, your highness?” Baekhyun asked, half-teasing.  
  
The prince eyed him warily, but apparently decided to answer. “Chanyeol is fine.”  
  
“How is it that nobody’s recognising you? I was in attendance when you performed at the Seelie Court, and I think everyone there must’ve known you by face.”  
  
The prince — Chanyeol — answered without turning around. He was still scanning the vicinity, presumably looking out for more of the men. “The Seelie Court was within our kingdom. This is different, we’re in Argentum territory.”  
  
The front lawn looked appealingly deserted, and Baekhyun took a few steps towards the now-quiet lake, beckoning the prince over. “So why are you here, undercover?”  
  
“Personal favour,” Chanyeol said, and he followed Baekhyun into the garden. “I know Kris pretty well, he got me out of a few… situations, when I was here in Argentum a couple of months back. But I’m supposed to be in Ozmion on a diplomatic mission, they weren’t expecting me to sneak out.”  
  
“Is his royal highness disobeying orders?”  
  
Chanyeol looked irked for a moment, then he let out a reluctant laugh instead. “Maybe.”  
  
For some reason, Baekhyun really enjoyed seeing his feathers ruffled. “How’s the diplomacy going then? Have you been doing anything other than sneaking off on personal favours?”  
  
“It’s going well enough, but I’m bored out of my mind. Living in royal court for prolonged periods really just isn’t my kind of thing.”  
  
The words sounded oddly casual, coming from his mouth. Baekhyun wanted to ask what the men earlier had wanted with him, but hesitated. He wasn’t sure if it was his place to ask.  
  
“I saw your performance earlier,” Chanyeol went on. “I’m glad you’ve found something to do, apart from wandering around magical forests at night.”  
  
Baekhyun bit his lip and looked down, waiting for him to continue.  
  
“You’re not from around here, are you.”  
  
“Uh, not exactly.”  
  
“You came through the well?”  
  
“You know about the well?”  
  
“I want to hear about where you came from.”  
  
Baekhyun sat down on the grassy banks, and Chanyeol sat next to him, looking out onto a black mirror.  
  
There was no reason not to trust the prince. He’d known that Baekhyun was an outsider, and he hadn’t done anything to him, other than save him from the forest. And if he wanted to make Baekhyun go back to where he came from, well — he was going to do so anyway. It’d just speed up the process.  
  
“I’m from a place called Vinland,” Baekhyun began. “I think the name is supposed to mean something like, the promised land. It really isn’t, though.” He paused. Chanyeol was watching him, listening intently. “It’s just an island. The terrain is quite different from here. We don’t get as many trees, but we have volcanoes. Lots of them. And in the deep night, we get these green and purple lights sometimes that shoot across the sky and fall like curtains from their trails. We call it the aurora.”  
  
“That sounds absolutely magical.”  
  
“It’s one of the best things about the valley,” Baekhyun admitted. “There aren’t many of us who live there, maybe a couple hundred?”  
  
“Had you ever left the island?”  
  
Baekhyun shook his head. “The sea that surrounds us is too violent, and though Vinland is pretty big, we don’t have much wood. The valley doesn’t have a boat strong enough, just yet. But I will build one someday. Somehow.”  
  
“Were you not happy, living there?”  
  
“Of course I was,” Baekhyun said, then he realised it was a lie. “Well, it wasn’t great all the time. People didn’t really like that I wanted to leave the island. Some people still don’t like me very much, they think I’m unruly and trouble-making. But I have my family, who loved me. I have friends. I have the sea.”  
  
“You must have spent a lot of time by the sea.”  
  
“Yeah. We’ve got a lot of beaches, covered in black sand from the volcanoes.”  
  
“I’d like you to see our beaches sometime, they’re very different from yours.”  
  
“What are they like, the beaches in Aurum?”  
  
“Hot,” Chanyeol said. “Our sand isn’t black, it’s kind of rust-coloured, and coarse but soft. They’re really popular when it gets warm, people love to swim in the ocean.” He paused, suddenly looking thoughtful. “So that night, in the wood, you were trying to get back home?”  
  
Baekhyun nodded. “I’d just come through the well, a few hours prior.” He thought back to his fall, and recounted the lurch of gravity he’d felt, the sensation of being tunnelled through a vortex. An inter-dimensional flume. “It feels so far away now. But the others said they’d bring me to consult with a magician and figure it out from there.”  
  
“Generous of them.” Chanyeol sounded impressed.  
  
“It is. They are.”  
  
“How’s being part of the troupe?”  
  
Baekhyun shrugged. “I like singing. Performing gives me a thrill.”  
  
“Did you perform, back where you came from?”  
  
“Not really. We don’t perform a whole lot in the valley,” Baekhyun admitted. “But we’ve heard enough about me, what about you?”  
  
“I do love music, but I’m not great at it.”  
  
“You played beautifully, in the Seelie Court,” Baekhyun countered.  
  
“I never learned much music,” Chanyeol clarified. “I taught myself that instrument, but I’m not knowledgeable about the theoretical aspects, and I don’t perform much, either.”  
  
“No, I can’t imagine that would be high up on the list of princely duties.”  
  
“I guess music will just stay a hobby for me.”  
  
Out at the lake, the chatter from the party was a muffled white noise; the sounds of the crickets and the light rustle of trees was all that disrupted the absolute serenity. Baekhyun lay down, sinking his head into the grass and staring up at the sky.  
  
“Tell me something else,” he said.  
  
“What do you want to hear?”  
  
Baekhyun pointed up at the sky. “The constellations. They’re different from the ones back home — are there any stories behind them?”  
  
The prince leaned back and lay down next to Baekhyun. There had to be at least a hundred stars in the clear sky, but Chanyeol knew every single one. He told Baekhyun the names of each constellation, and the myths that lay behind each one — different versions, as told by the elves, the dwarves, the giants, the faeries. As he talked, the stories were fascinating, but Baekhyun found himself just listening to the prince’s voice, letting the words just wash over him. It was so soothing, so pleasant to listen to and so reassuring, it made him feel at peace.  
  
Baekhyun hadn’t even realised he’d zoned out, a blissful smile fixed on his features, until they began to hear the sounds of people leaving the party, gradually making their way across the lawn in small groups. Chanyeol and Baekhyun were relatively well-concealed in their position next to the lake, but Baekhyun looked back over at the house, and knew he should be heading back to look for the others.  
  
“I should go,” he said, voice tinged with regret. He didn’t want to leave. “Or they’ll be looking for me.”  
  
Chanyeol nodded, and straightened up. “It was nice to meet you. Baekhyun.”  
  
“You too, highness.”  
  
“One thing,” Chanyeol said. “Earlier, when you saved me from those guys. Were you out there looking for me?”  
  
“Yes, I wanted to thank you for saving me in the wood.”  
  
“And ended up saving me as well.”  
  
Baekhyun laughed, and took a small bow. “Shouldn’t I be knighted for this, or something?”  
  
“Definitely, once you get back to Aurum.” Chanyeol grinned.  
  
“We’re headed for Ozmion next, though. So we might see each other again.” Baekhyun winked, and inwardly marvelled at his own audacity. He never thought he’d end up flirting this brazenly — with a prince of another world, no less.  
  
Chanyeol laughed. “Maybe. I’ll keep an eye out for you, Baekhyun.”  
  
Baekhyun bowed one last time, and then he turned and headed off to look for the rest of the group, fighting to hide the smirk that still refused to leave his face.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**IV.**  
  
They set off again the next morning, and by noon they were winding their way past increasingly dense settlements, making a steady uphill climb towards higher ground. Baekhyun leaned against the window frame, watching the villages as they went by. Halfway up the mountain, temperatures started dropping, and his puffs of breath turned to mist as they hit the frigid air.  
  
In the early afternoon, they passed through towering iron-wrought gates and arrived in Ozmion, capital of the kingdom of Argentum. The city was built into the side of a mountain, with a citadel standing at the top, facing a large dome that seemed to contain a defunct carousel bearing giant marble statues. They followed a coastal road into the heart of the city, looking out beyond craggy cliffs to the narrow strips of beach below, where violent grey waves crashed into obsidian.  
  
The architecture in the city was of an intricacy Baekhyun had never seen before. Towering marble domes, greyed with wear, jewel-toned stained glass spires with intricate designs rising high above intimidatingly large forums and temples and basilicas, all held up by towering columns of white marble. The entire city spoke of wealth, of settlement, and a long, powerful history. And it was an unfriendly place — from the intimidation of its structures, to the sprawling scatter of its messy streets, to the bitter chill of the sharp, salty air. Everything was so old, so large, and so dark. The sea seemed to be constantly in turmoil, the clouds permanently overcast.  
  
Their caravan rattled over bumps in the cobblestone as it made its way into the backyard of a large inn on the fringe of the old town. _Jongdae’s inn_ , Kyungsoo had said earlier, _we always go to him when we’re here, he finds temp work for us to do. He doesn’t know you’re coming, but I’m sure we’ll find something for you._ Baekhyun climbed out with the others, feeling the cold pierce straight into him like a knife. The group headed into the inn through the back entrance, winding through bustling kitchens and backrooms until they found themselves in the receiving lounge, a warm and low-ceilinged room crowded with small clusters of people huddled around wooden tables, and a larger group of people warming their hands by the crackling fireplace.  
  
All around them, guests were pouring out drinks from copper flagons, poring over books and maps, talking across tables. Baekhyun was still immersed in taking everything in, when a voice appeared from behind his left shoulder. “You’re late, guys. I’ve been expecting you since morning.”  
  
Baekhyun spun around. A man was standing right next to him, catlike eyes glinting and mischievous grin half-illuminated in the lowlight.  
  
“Who’s this?” His eyes scanned Baekhyun, darting from his face down to his shoes and back up.  
  
“Jongdae!” Sehun tackled the guy with a hug, and Baekhyun was quickly shoved to the side of the group as Jongin, Yixing and Kyungsoo all moved to crowd around the man. “I missed you, you rascal.”  
  
“How’s business?” Yixing asked, his neck awkwardly bent forwards under the weight of Jongdae’s arm. Jongdae steered Yixing and Sehun towards the only empty table and pushed them onto wooden stools, grabbing hold of Kyungsoo’s arm to direct him towards the other unoccupied stools. Baekhyun trailed after them awkwardly, seating himself between Kyungsoo and Jongin, directly opposite Jongdae.  
  
“What does it look like?” Jongdae shrugged, nodding at the crowded lounge behind them. “Life is grand. At this rate, I won’t be surprised if I get inducted into the ranks of the faeries.”  
  
“Like the faeries of Argentum will let a shady alley-dweller crawl up to their lofty heights,” Yixing muttered.  
  
Jongdae smirked. “We keep the shady business in the backrooms. Up front here is where scholars write poetry and travelling merchants talk trade.”  
  
“And innkeepers deal jobs to travelling entertainers,” Sehun reminded him with a nudge to the side. Jongdae didn’t even flinch, raising his hand in the air and snapping his fingers. A waiter came hurrying over with a flagon and an armful of copper goblets. Jongin distributed the goblets, sliding them across the table surface.  
  
Baekhyun watched as Kyungsoo poured him a glass of frothy golden liquid. “It’s sparkling honey mead,” Jongin told him, raising his glass to his lips. “House brew. It’s really good, famous throughout Argentum.”  
  
“Is this alcoholic?” Baekhyun asked, watching bubbles rise to the surface.  
“Mildly. Nothing to worry about.”  
  
Deciding to trust Jongin’s judgement, he held his breath and took a large gulp. Jongin was right — it was amazing, sweet flavour exploding in his mouth, the sharpness from the fizz shooting straight up to his head.  
  
“So,” Jongdae was saying in the background, “you didn’t tell me you were travelling with a kinetic.”  
  
Baekhyun’s eyes snapped up. Sehun glanced from left to right, looking mystified. “We are? Where?”  
  
“There.” Jongdae was grinning at Baekhyun.  
  
“Are you serious? He’s not —” Jongin caught himself. “He’s never shown an inclination?”  
  
Jongdae just extended his hand, raising his eyebrows at Baekhyun, daring him to take it. Never one to back down from a challenge, Baekhyun pushed up his sleeve and reached out to grasp it, firmly intertwining their fingers. Instantly an intense tingling sensation shot from the tips of his fingers all the way up his arm, and then suddenly his entire hand was glowing with luminescence, a faint glow like moonlight. Thin tendrils of white static ran over the surface of Jongdae’s hand, creeping up to envelope Baekhyun’s in a woven network of wire.  
  
And then the wires shrank back and the light faded, and Jongdae pulled his hand away. “There you have it.”  
  
Their table fell silent. Baekhyun examined his palm in wonder, turning it around to check for damage. He could feel everyone’s stares boring into the sides of his head.  
  
“He’s untrained, but the potential’s definitely there. Your name was—?”  
  
“Baekhyun,” he said.  
  
“You had no idea you were a light user?” he asked. _A light user._ Baekhyun shook his head. “Well then, Baekhyun, I might have a job for you after all.”  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
While the others went off to meet the various people they would be working under, Jongdae gave Baekhyun instructions to find Minseok, a warlock whom he would be assisting.  
  
Minseok lived in one of the buildings with the stained glass spires. His place faced another one of the small squares the city seemed to have at every corner. Baekhyun knocked hesitantly at the door, not knowing what to expect and feeling uncomfortable without the rest of his group. It was the first time he’d been out on his own, since the fall, and wandering the gloomy streets of Ozmion made him feel incredibly small and out of his depth.  
  
It turned out that he needn’t have worried. A young man, barely older than Baekhyun himself, answered the door and greeted him in a friendly manner. “Hi, can I help?”  
  
“Hi, I’m Baekhyun,” Baekhyun said uncertainly. “I’m looking for Kim Minseok? Jongdae sent me.”  
  
“So he finally came through,” the guy said. “Nice to meet you, Baekhyun, I’m Minseok. Please come in.”  
  
Minseok’s place wasn’t anything like what Baekhyun had been expecting. Jongdae had mentioned that Minseok brewed potions for a living, and for some reason he’d pictured a wizened old man, living in a dark dungeon, brewing fluorescent green potions in rusted black cauldrons. Instead, the interior of Minseok’s tower was cosy and somewhat eclectic, with all kinds of strange plants lined up in small terracotta pots along wooden shelves, pewter and burnished gold equipment neatly laid out on working counters. The grey light filtering through the stained glass coloured the room in patches of gold, blue and green.  
  
And then there was Minseok himself. Like the prince, Minseok was fair and ethereal-looking. He had large feline eyes the colour of melted amber, and delicate features on a small, sharp face. Unlike the prince, Minseok was short and svelte, and Baekhyun wasn’t sure if the man he was looking at was human or faerie.  
  
“What’s your … talent? Jongdae said I was a light user. And _he_ could produce electricity from his palm.”  
  
“My element is ice,” Minseok said. “His is lightning. And yes, yours is light.”  
  
Ice. It suited him somehow. “What other kinds of talents are there?”  
  
Minseok look surprised by the question. He tilted his head, thinking. “There are so many, it’d be impossible to index. Aside from elementals like us, there’s teleportation. Telekinesis. Umbrakinesis, the ability to bend darkness and shadow.”  
  
Baekhyun raised his eyebrows. “Wow, that’s grim. I’d thought light wasn’t too impressive a skill, but it could’ve been worse. Guess I lucked out after all.”  
  
Minseok laughed. “Light is a really powerful skill, so you kind of did. But remember, Baekhyun, not all dark is evil, and not all light is good. You’ll find that out for yourself soon enough.”  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Minseok ran an apothecary, and each morning he sent Baekhyun out to get the various ingredients and spells he needed for his concoctions. Baekhyun picked up the strangest variety of ingredients, from sprigs of wheat and fibrous blue roots from forests underwater, to seafoam, bottled sunlight, and even music scores which he had to sing out loud. From cursed snuffboxes and mysterious green roots they called rushlights, to griffin claws from the far north and dwarf-mined oil and the first-shed wings of sprites.  
  
Baekhyun followed Minseok’s instructions closely, threading through streets and alleys of the city to pick up his items — from travelling markets, faerie-owned pharmacies, individual dealers who operated in shady-looking offices right on the borders of the city. The more he saw of the city, the more he grew to appreciate it — Ozmion was ancient and fascinating and beautiful, with life tucked into every last corner and alleyway. Faeries and humans seemed to coexist side by side in fairly equal proportions, which Baekhyun found unusual, as all of the towns they’d visited prior were largely single-species settlements. Out on the streets he’d see faeries shopping at human-owned market stalls, humans stepping into a faerie healer’s, faeries and humans alike attending conventions in the town hall on the central square. Ozmion was a scholarly sort of town, and many of the city-dwellers were students or teachers in the schools and the astronomical observatory, which seemed to be a major institution. It was visible even from Minseok’s tower, a rounded tower with an open top floor that hosted a massive armillary sphere contained within columns and a domed roof.  
  
He learned that faeries constituted the monarchy here in Ozmion, and they lived in the castle Baekhyun had seen when they’d first rolled into the city, along with their staff of both faeries and humans. Chanyeol must be up there right at this moment, Baekhyun thought, listening to some dull speech or meeting with some dignitaries.  
  
“For the most part, the Fae are peaceful folk,” Minseok explained, when Baekhyun asked about the city’s population. “They don’t take sides, and coexist with us neutrally. But yeah, it _is_ rare for the Fae to live alongside humans. Ozmion is the only city we know of that has managed this kind of peaceful coexistence. It’s been this way ever since the city was invaded centuries ago, when the humans and faeries worked together to overthrow the giants and claim this seat of power. The victory arch — the one in the central plaza — was erected then.”  
  
In the afternoons, he helped Minseok with his potion-brewing. Most days, Minseok would ask him to prepare the ingredients he’d bought, and Baekhyun would work in the tower room, or on the balcony for procedures that required daylight. On the rare occasions that Minseok could manage the day’s orders on his own, he’d give Baekhyun time off and let him go to his library to pore over the books there.  
  
In the library, Baekhyun found books on magic, on history — mostly on Argentum, but there were mentions of Aurum and Aspen, and on occasion he would see a map or two. The maps depicted the Western continent in great detail, but didn’t show much of the lands beyond. When Baekhyun asked about it, Minseok just said that he wasn’t much of a traveller, and that it was usually court officials and travelling merchants who tended to have more comprehensive maps.  
  
While working under him, Baekhyun also learned a lot from Minseok about his magic and how he could harness it.  
  
“To use magic, you first have to learn to sense it,” Minseok said. “You have the innate ability to bend and channel specific kinds of magic, light in your case, but everyone’s approach to magic will differ along with their talent.” Magic could be combined, Minseok added, to incredible effect, if it was compatible.  
  
Three days after they arrived in Argentum, Baekhyun received a parcel. Someone had sent it to Jongdae’s inn, apparently knowing that Baekhyun was living in his backyard. The others had already left to their jobs when Jongdae came around to their caravan with the small paper-wrapped package. “Congratulations, word’s got out that you’re in town,” was all Jongdae said as he handed it over.  
  
There wasn’t any note attached, nor any message written on the paper. Baekhyun picked it up, gauging its weight, then undid the strings and let the wrapping fall.  
  
It was a wishing well. A carved figurine, seemingly made of glass, its details so finely etched that he could distinguish each individual crack in the brick, each blade of grass growing out from within the mortar. The mastery of the sculptor could only be guessed at, Baekhyun thought, turning the figurine around in his hands. The sculptor had carved water into the well, its surface indented by the most stunningly hyper-real ripples Baekhyun had ever seen. If his probing fingers hadn’t met with cold solid glass, he wouldn’t have believed that the sculpture wasn’t filled with actual clear liquid.  
  
The only thing different about the sculpture, compared to the well Baekhyun had come through, was that the sculpture had a strange white light flickering in the depths of the water.  
  
There was only one person who could’ve sent it. Baekhyun hunted for some fabric to wrap the figurine in, and he carefully placed it in the corner of his rucksack, tucking it under his bed. For some reason, he didn’t want the others seeing it.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
The next day, Baekhyun asked Minseok for advice on navigating the wood, but refrained from mentioning his reasons.  
  
Minseok seemed confused by his request. “Baekhyun, I don’t know if you’ve realised, but you have magic too.”  
  
“Yeah, but I have no idea how to use it.” It wasn’t the complete truth — he _was_ developing some preliminary control over generating and controlling light, but he couldn’t see how that could help him with the wood situation.  
  
“I can give non-magicians spells that would help them, but I can’t give you anything. Your magic would just counteract mine. You just have to keep training — as your magic develops, you’ll be able to see through the forest’s traps and navigate it on your own.”  
  
It wasn’t the specific advice Baekhyun had been hoping for, but if Minseok’s magic wouldn’t work on him, he supposed he didn’t have much of a choice.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
At the end of each workday, Baekhyun would return to the inn to have dinner with the others. Sometimes Minseok would finish early, and Baekhyun would make use of his free time alone, taking slow walks along the road behind the inn to look at the sea. He missed it, and he longed to go down to the beach, but the waves looked treacherous even in comparison to those of Vinland’s seas. If he went down, he probably wouldn’t ever come back up.  
  
Living in Jongdae’s backyard exposed Baekhyun to things he felt like he shouldn’t be seeing or hearing. The people who made use of Jongdae’s “private rooms” weren’t rough or suspicious-looking by any means; they were often well-dressed, inconspicuous looking people who could pass off as academics or a travellers in the city. But whenever Baekhyun passed back and forth along the corridor leading from the main lounge towards the kitchens and back doors, he would hear their voices, drifting out of the vents. Most of the time it was just hushed unintelligible murmurings, but from time to time people would forget and raise their voices. There was one particular conversation that Baekhyun overheard, that stuck in his head. It was a woman’s voice — sharp and steely. “They say the Salamander is in town.”  
  
“He’s one of them spies, isn’t he?”  
  
“They say the giants use him as a weapon. It’s impossible to meet him in person, but he’s already infiltrated the kingdom’s schemes several times.” The seriousness of her tone would be almost comical if it didn’t sound so menacing.  
  
“He’s a faerie, then? Or a warlock?” The innocuous question was the reason the conversation had lodged itself in Baekhyun’s brain.  
  
“They say a warlock. Most probably one of our own Ozmionites.”  
  
In the evenings after dinner, the players were usually too tired to do much, but sometimes they went out to shows and festivals in the city squares. Kyungsoo liked to hang in some of the larger taverns to watch live musicians singing and playing their own acoustic instruments, while Baekhyun preferred the large, vibrant festivals, where they could cheer in the crowd instead of onstage for a change. The central plaza was a popular spot for the major festivals — people would perform on a temporary stage in the centre of the square, between the observatory and the convention centre. The large pavilion would flood with humans and faeries on weekend nights, and they’d lose themselves in a sea of ravers.  
  
On one particular night, one of Ozmion’s local bands performed on a square close to Jongdae’s inn. They weren’t as well-known as some of the bigger acts in town, but Kyungsoo had a particular liking for the band, and he dragged Baekhyun along with him to the show. They had a silver-haired guy playing a guitar, someone on a piano, and a group of people singing a contrapuntal chorus.  
  
Watching the man playing the guitar made Baekhyun think of the prince, again, and their first encounter in the glade. He wondered how he was doing in the Ozmion court, and whether he was still sneaking out in the evenings. He hadn’t caught a single glimpse of Chanyeol anywhere in the city, and felt slightly disappointed that the wishing well — if indeed Chanyeol had sent it — hadn’t come with any message. It seemed almost unreasonable to hope, Baekhyun reflected, considering they weren’t even friends. They’d met a few times, helped each other out, and shared a couple conversations. There was zero reason for them to meet again.  
  
_But why would he send the sculpture, if he had no intention to meet again?_  
  
Irrelevant, Baekhyun told himself. He didn’t even know for sure if it was Chanyeol. And in any case, Baekhyun had absolutely no business trying to forge friendships here. It was for the best, he told himself, trying his utmost to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
Several weeks into his job, Baekhyun went on his first “field trip” with Minseok to the Giant’s Carousel. As a senior warlock in the Ozmion registry, Minseok was routinely enlisted by the court to help them with “matters of security”. A horse-drawn cart was sent to his tower early in the morning, and it took them up the hill facing the castle, to the ruined carousel.  
Up close, the carousel was even more colossal and monstrous in scale. The moment they stepped through the rusted gates into the ride area, an eerie silence fell, as though they were sealed within an airtight bubble that the winds could not breach. Baekhyun followed as Minseok walked up to the edge of the carousel, and hoisted himself up onto the platform. Now that he was up close, he could see the grotesqueness of the carousel figures — they were faeries, goblins, elves, humans, but all grossly deformed and mutilated, with distended lips, smiling mouths, flattened skulls, bulging eyes.  
  
The centrepiece of the carousel, the column holding up the roof, was covered in carvings — coarse-looking carvings, large curly characters in a language Baekhyun couldn’t understand. For some reason, just staring at the criss-cross of lines made him nervous.  
  
“Curses are carved within these markings,” Minseok said, as he knelt next to the column and began pulling out his rune books. “There’s a lot of old giant magic in this place, and the officers have most of their security team studying ways to purge it.”  
  
“They haven’t been very successful, then.”  
  
“Evidently not. You can sense it, can’t you?”  
  
Baekhyun could. It was hard to pinpoint exactly when, but as he had started training his magic under Minseok, he’d begun to develop a sixth sense for it. He could feel it pulling, like currents, winding through the carousel and filling the air around them. He could also sense its _nature_ — old, hostile, most definitely not human.  
  
“Would the giants actually be able to release the magic?”  
  
“They would, but they’re prohibited from entering Ozmion. The court often gets warlocks to come up here and ebb the flow of the magic, because unlike faeries, we have some control over runes. But it never seems to stay low for long, and we don’t understand why.”  
  
“Can’t you just destroy it? Or harness it in a way that wouldn’t destroy the city?”  
  
Minseok shook his head, but before he could elaborate, they heard the faint sound of the gate creaking on its hinges, and felt the ripple of magic as someone passed through the force field surrounding the carousel.  
  
“Is somebody coming in? That’s strange, they usually empty the place out when we’re cleared for maintenance.”  
  
There was a movement somewhere just around the bend. Baekhyun tensed, and Minseok straightened up next to him. A group of five people were approaching them, a familiar figure at its helm.  
  
_What was he doing here?_  
  
“I’m sorry, but the place is closed,” Minseok said. “We’ve been authorised by the court to carry out some work.”  
  
“You’re speaking to the prince of Aurum,” a man at Chanyeol’s left said sharply. Minseok lowered his head slightly, but kept silent, not retracting his statement.  
  
Baekhyun met Chanyeol’s gaze steadily. Surprise flashed in his eyes — whether pleasant or unpleasant, Baekhyun couldn’t tell.  
  
“The prince took an interest in this place and asked to see it,” one of the people behind Chanyeol spoke up. “The court has given him clearance, at our request.”  
  
“We won’t be staying long.” Chanyeol’s hand had been lifted ahead of him, but he let it drop to his side, flexing his fingers. “I’ll leave you to your maintenance, not to worry.”  
  
Minseok nodded, and respectfully stepped aside to let the group pass. The group made to continue forwards, but Baekhyun stayed rooted to the spot. “Wait,” he blurted. “May I speak to the prince in private?”  
  
He could feel Minseok staring at him, but kept his eyes forward. The officers glanced to Chanyeol, who lowered his eyes. “Give us a minute.”  
  
“We’ll just step out for a quick moment.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the road outside, and led the way to the gate. Chanyeol followed him through the gate, and his officers stood just within the force field, keeping an eye on them.  
  
Once they stepped out of the field, the wind seemed almost deafening in comparison to the bubble of silence within. Chanyeol stood in front of him, expressionless, waiting for him to speak, and Baekhyun decided to get straight to the point. “So I haven’t seen you around the city.”  
  
The corner of Chanyeol’s mouth lifted into a slight smile, and his stiff facade cracked instantaneously. “I’ve been in the city, but mostly in the daytime,” he answered. “Were you missing me?”  
  
“I was,” Baekhyun said, without the slightest trace of embarrassment. “I thought the plan was to meet again. Was it not?”  
  
“I’ve been around to the inn you’re staying at,” Chanyeol said. “Several times. But I’ve had state dinners to attend, and I always left in the late afternoon.”  
  
That surprised Baekhyun. He couldn’t picture Chanyeol, with his flame-orange hair and ethereal aura, sitting in that dim reception lounge. “How did you know — never mind, I guess you have contacts around. Your guards are staring at us, so let’s keep this brief — shall we meet again?”  
  
Chanyeol glanced away, thinking. “Come to the central plaza then, tomorrow at sunset. I’ll meet you at the victory arch.”  
  
Baekhyun nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you there tomorrow.” Remembering the officers, he threw in a respectful bow for good measure, and let Chanyeol step back into the carousel ahead of him.  
Minseok eyed him curiously as he knelt next to him and started flipping through the rune books, searching for matches to help him with translation. They focused on the books and the carvings in the column, trying to ignore Chanyeol and the officers moving around behind them. Baekhyun concentrated as hard as he could, translating runes and watching Minseok perform counter-spells. As he did, the carvings seemed to fade out of focus initially, but only to sharpen again slightly once they moved on, as though resisting the magic they cast.  
  
And then Chanyeol stepped out of the enclosure and the Carousel abruptly jolted into movement, machinery groaning to life as it began rotating slowly around its central axis. Baekhyun caught the faintest echo of a haunting melody drifting through the air, before seconds passed and it faded away into nothingness.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
As dusk was falling the next day, Baekhyun wrapped up in the royal blue robes Minseok had loaned him — magician’s robes, embroidered with silver thread — and made his way towards the central plaza, at the base of the famous Ozmion observatory. In the golden hour, the square was crowded with scholars leaving the observatory, students and academics getting off work and heading towards the nearby streets for an evening of unwinding.  
  
Chanyeol was waiting for him under the victory arch, leaning against one of the marble columns, an inconspicuous tan-coloured robe hanging off his long frame. He looked up as Baekhyun approached, as though sensing his arrival. “You came.”  
  
“I asked you to meet, didn’t I? Of course I came.”  
  
Chanyeol looked him up and down. “Nice robes. Very fancy.”  
  
“I borrowed them from Minseok — the guy you saw at the carousel.” Baekhyun smoothed the robes out self-consciously. He’d gotten used to the loose, flowy stage outfits that the players usually wore, but in Ozmion they just made him stick out. “Where should we go for dinner?  
  
They ended up choosing a diner just off the main pavillion, facing a courtyard where the marketplace opened on most mornings. They restaurant had an open-air area seating that was absolutely crowded with guests and brimming with noisy chatter. There was a very slim chance of getting noticed there, and it would be practically impossible to eavesdrop. Chanyeol reiterated that nobody would recognise him in Ozmion (probably), but he kept his hood up just in case, and Baekhyun ordered their food.  
  
Once the waiter left, Chanyeol relaxed visibly, slouching from his previously tense posture.  
  
“He wasn’t looking at you,” Baekhyun said. “Relax.”  
  
“It’s not that easy,” he countered. “I’m not looking for a repeat of Lochhaven right now, you know? Not all of us can go about so easily entrusting our lives to strangers.”  
  
That last part felt like it was directed at him. Baekhyun shrugged. “It worked out for me. With the players, and with you. I’d probably be lying dead in the wood otherwise.”  
  
Chanyeol was silent for a moment. “You really surprised me, that night, calling towards us for help instead of running away like most people would have.”  
  
“I knew I could trust you.”  
  
“Why is that?”  
  
“You were riding horses.”  
  
He laughed. “Are you serious?”  
  
“Horses aren’t evil. They’re always associated with good, even in all our folk stories.”  
  
“Not normal horses. But there are still phookas and kelpies, and the non-magician wouldn’t be able to distinguish them.” Chanyeol realised his slip, and tried to catch himself. “But of course, you’re a magician. You assist a warlock now.”  
  
Baekhyun wasn’t falling for it. “You say ‘non-magician’ like you don’t fall under that category either,” he remarked.  
  
Chanyeol looked away.  
  
“So what’s your talent?”  
  
He picked up one of the roses from the vase on the table, spinning its stalk between his fingers. “Guess.”  
  
“Um, nature kinesis?”  
  
“Wrong.” Chanyeol spread his fingers slowly, and the flower stayed upright, enveloped in a column of flame.  
  
Of course. Fire. The element of the salamander.  
  
A few tables down, their waiter was approaching with trays of food, and Chanyeol swiftly closed his fist, extinguishing the fire.  
  
They were each served a large silver platter, bearing black and green olives, a lean cut of boar, malted bread, and a salad of leeks and artichokes.  
  
Baekhyun was too distracted by his thoughts to properly appraise the food. He picked up a fork, absent-mindedly spearing an olive off his plate. “I was wondering, you said you didn’t like diplomatic meetings. Why did the court send you instead of your parents?”  
  
“They’re both travelling.” Chanyeol said. He didn’t seem too willing to talk about it, his demeanour abruptly closing off. “Aurum isn’t in too strong a place at the moment, and they’re looking for allies.”  
  
Baekhyun sidestepped carefully. “But if you had a choice, you’d rather be travelling with them?”  
  
Chanyeol sighed. “It’s not that I don’t love Aurum, it’s a beautiful kingdom. But there are places I’m dying to explore, places far away from the western continent.”  
  
“I haven’t seen Aurum itself, but if it’s anywhere near as beautiful as Ozmion is, I’m sure it’s amazing.”  
  
“Esmis is much larger than Ozmion, but it’s not as pretty.” He was warming up to the topic, sitting up straighter as he spoke about his home. “The houses are made of sandstone and pink limestone, the colour of our firefalls, and the port and its accompanying souq is the most flourishing part of the western continent.” Baekhyun hung onto every word, visualising the sparkling capital in his mind. “If you ever come to Aurum, I'll make sure to show you around.”  
  
A dangerous twinge of regret. “Thank you,” he said.  
  
“Though I'm not sure if you'll like it, it's very different from Argentum.” Chanyeol had finally started eating, cutting his bread with a fork and knife. “What do you like so much about Ozmion?”  
  
“It's so culturally rich. Knowledge-rich, too, it feels steeped in history. Must be because they've got two contributing species.”  
  
“They've got the advantage of being really ancient, too. The oldest human settlement on record was here in Argentum.”  
  
“In the entire world, or just this continent?”  
  
“We don't have much record of human settlement outside of the western continent. Much of the rest of the world is inhabited solely by the Fae.”  
  
“Is that where you'd like to travel to?” Baekhyun just wanted to keep him talking.  
  
“The Far East,” Chanyeol said. “I want to go on a long sea voyage, to the unexplored islands. There's a place they call the Seahaven. It's a somewhat messy region, filled with pirate triremes from different tribes constantly at war. They say mermaids live in an undersea city not far from there.”  
  
He had been so restrained, almost stoic, before. But as he started talking passionately, his gestures got wider, and his eyes were so innocent, so animated. How could those eyes lead me down a path to darkness, Baekhyun wondered. How could everything about him only make me fall deeper.  
  
“Seahaven,” he said, trying out the word. “I miss the sea. Is the ocean here always like this? Is it just monsoon rain, or something?”  
  
“It's always like this, sadly. Except for at daybreak.”  
  
“What? At daybreak?”  
  
“The ocean here in Ozmion is perfectly calm for a few minutes, every morning, as the sun breaks the horizon.”  
  
Baekhyun’s eyes widened. “Unbelievable. So technically, a ship could sail into the harbour at daybreak?”  
  
“If it managed to cross fifty kilometres in around three minutes, then yeah, I guess it could.”  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
After their meal, they took a stroll through the hilly streets. In the evening, the lantern-lit cobblestones alleys were filling up with people, hanging around outside the bars and congregating in the smaller squares.  
  
They headed slowly uphill and reached a less crowded part of town, where their only company was the wind whistling through the empty streets. Baekhyun looked around, checking for eavesdroppers, and finally decided to broach the subject.  
  
“So why hasn't anyone realised that you're the Salamander they're after?”  
  
Next to him, Chanyeol stiffened. “You picked up on that.”  
  
“I don’t know how nobody else has, honestly.”  
  
Chanyeol stopped in his tracks, rounding on Baekhyun. “I guess it’s because nobody else coincidentally runs into me at the Giant’s Carousel, or sees me getting cornered by thugs.”  
  
Baekhyun raised his chin, meeting his gaze steadily. The silence was so tense it was almost palpable.  
  
Chanyeol’s features were set, but Baekhyun just wanted to know _why_. “So what's the deal?” He asked finally. “Why would you serve the giants?”  
  
For another few moments, Baekhyun held his breath. The last thing he wanted was to drive him away, after he’d worked so hard at getting him to open up.  
  
Then Chanyeol exhaled in resignation. “I’m not serving the giants.”  
  
“So you’re actually helping…?” Baekhyun probed.  
  
“The Salamander is just a symbolic figure. I’m not the one actually doing most of the work here.”  
  
“So it’s the…” Baekhyun trailed off. The men at the wedding, of course. “You’ve got spies planted here. Many of them.”  
  
“Yes. Kris, my friend who got married, is one of them. Those men who wanted to sell me out were spies, too.” Chanyeol paused, shaking his head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”  
  
“It's not like I have any reason to spread this around,” Baekhyun pointed out. “I just don’t understand why you have to be involved. Or why you’re working for the giants against the court of Ozmion.”  
  
“I have to be involved because I’m the warlock. I get instructions from spies, and act accordingly. And we’re not working for the giants. Several years back, some of our spies found out that the rulers of Ozmion were covertly planning an attack on Aurum.”  
  
Baekhyun blanched. “Oh.”  
  
“They would succeed in capturing us, too, if it weren’t for their recently diverting all their resources into trying to stop the giants.”  
  
“So you’re a decoy.”  
  
“I guess you could call it that.”  
  
“And you tampered with the Giant’s Carousel.” Baekhyun thought back to the way the carousel had momentarily come back to life, just after Chanyeol had stepped away from the gate. “But why is the seat of power in Aurum so weak? From what I’ve heard, it’s a rich and flourishing kingdom.”  
  
“Aurum is wealthy from trade, and it’s a kingdom rich in people and culture, but its magical core is weak. I am the only magician currently in its sphere of control. Argentum, with all the faeries revolving in its sphere of control, could quite easily seize ours.”  
  
Baekhyun paused, trying to take in all this new information. “And… what happened with those men? The ones from the wedding?”  
  
“What about them?”  
  
“Did you go to meet them?”  
  
Chanyeol looked skeptical. “You didn’t think I was going to let them spread my identity around all of Argentum, did you?”  
  
“So they ran away.”  
  
“Of course not. They’re in prison.”  
  
“Who did you take with you?”  
  
“Nobody. I’m a warlock, I can deal with a few non-fighters.”  
  
Baekhyun’s forehead creased. “So they didn’t even take any precautions?”  
  
“I don’t think those particular men expected me to actually be a warlock like I said I was. A fledgling magician, maybe.”  
  
Baekhyun could picture the scene in his mind’s eye. The forum ruins, backlit by dusk. The three men — or maybe more, since they’d probably have taken their full force to the confrontation — waiting on the rocks, expecting to overpower the prince, extort their prize, and ride off into the sunset. The prince, a solitary figure making his way up the slopes on foot, looking small and insignificant. And then the fire, small trails snaking their way towards the offenders, dancing through the cloud of giant’s magic, and settling into its final form — a giant phoenix extending its wings in flight.  
  
“I hope they got what they deserved,” was all he said.  
  
They kept walking through the streets, heading back downhill towards the more lively part of town. Along the way, they stopped at a faerie-owned tearoom for some drinks, and at Chanyeol’s questioning, Baekhyun kept up a steady stream of stories about his experiences performing on the road, living in Jongdae’s inn, and assisting Minseok with his potions. The past weeks had been so full and exciting and utterly _new_ , Baekhyun found that he hadn’t exhausted his memories even several hours later.  
  
As he talked about learning magic and mastering light, Baekhyun abruptly remembered something. “Oh — and thank you for the sculpture you sent. It’s beautiful.”  
  
Chanyeol smiled slightly. “You’re welcome. Did you like it?”  
  
“Definitely, I loved it. Who made it?”  
  
“I don’t know who specifically, but it’s elf-made. They’re masters of craft, just like dwarves with metalwork.”  
  
“You had it made?”  
  
“Yes, I told them I wanted the fabled Well of Thesor. Is it a close likeness?”  
  
“Incredibly close. But there wasn’t that light in it, when I last saw it.”  
  
Chanyeol shrugged. “This was carved from an elf’s firsthand likeness. Maybe the light only appeared for that particular person.”  
  
They’d reached the clock tower, right in the centre of the city a few blocks from where they’d started in the main pavilion. It was almost twelve midnight when they approached, the pewter hands on the clock face reflecting the street lights.  
  
Chanyeol turned to Baekhyun, looking apologetic. “I’m sorry Baekhyun, I should really head back now. I would accompany you back to the inn, but I don’t want anyone noticing me.”  
  
Baekhyun shook his head reflexively, smiling brightly. “No, it’s fine. Head on back to the palace, your highness, I don’t want to get in your way.”  
  
Baekhyun knew this might be the last time he ever saw the prince, and the thought filled him with strange dread, of encroaching trouble. But the prince looked as calm and pulled-together as usual, showing no sign of regret or reluctance — even though he, too, must have known. The full moon would be here soon enough, and Baekhyun was leaving Ozmion behind him.  
  
As though reading his mind, Chanyeol spoke. “I heard you’re heading back to Aurum tomorrow?”  
  
“Yeah, we are.”  
  
“Goodbye, Baekhyun,” the prince said. “I’ll see you again.”  
  
They’d been talking for hours, but it felt so sudden — and way too soon. There was still so much Baekhyun wanted to say, lingering on the tip of his tongue.  
  
_I barely just met you, but somehow I feel like I’ve known you all my life.  
  
I shouldn’t have asked to see you today, yet I couldn’t stop myself.  
  
I’ll never see you again, but I don’t want to let you go. _  
  
Chanyeol took hold of his hand, and raised it to his lips, lightly brushing his knuckles. Then he smiled, as wide and genuine as Baekhyun had ever seen him, waved, and walked swiftly away, disappearing around the corner in a few long strides.  
  
Baekhyun stood alone in the square as the clock chimed twelve midnight, each chime overlapping with the last, echoing through the empty streets.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
As Baekhyun lay in bed, a million thoughts swirled around in his head like whirlpools.  
  
As always, he thought of home. Of his village, in the valley, on the island surrounded by endless sea. He thought of his parents, his brother, and the villagers. How much time had passed, in that realm, since he’d left? What did the villagers think? They’d always disapproved of Baekhyun spending all his time alone by the ocean, dreaming of building a boat strong enough to withstand the waves and leave the island. Would they think he’d been taken by the whitewater men?  
  
He thought of Chanyeol’s words, about the islands at the end of the world. There were other kingdoms, many of them, across the seas. Countless people had gone on voyages to these places, and many had returned. Chanyeol’s father himself was out there somewhere, visiting cities and settlements in the hopes of finding allies.  
  
When he returned home, what would he tell everyone? Would he tell the truth, about visiting this world? How would the villagers take it? Would they believe him, or would they continue to ostracise him and call him delusional?  
  
It was their last night in the stormy city of Ozmion. The next day they would begin their journey back to Aurum, and he would enter the forest of Thesor under the full moon. The thought filled him with a sense of trepidation.  
  
Baekhyun tossed and turned what felt like another eternity. It was probably early morning. The sun would soon be encroaching on the night.  
  
_The sea here in Ozmion is perfectly calm for a few minutes every morning, as the sun breaks the horizon._  
  
Baekhyun missed the ocean, yearned for the feeling of liberation it always gave him. This would be his last morning in Ozmion, and his only chance to see the strange phenomenon Chanyeol had told him about over dinner.  
  
Quietly, Baekhyun slipped out of the caravan and into the backyard. The air was colder than usual, misty and wet. He pulled his hood tightly around him and headed out to the road, running in the direction of the coast.  
  
He found the staircase without difficulty. It was built into the side of the cliff, leading straight down from the cliffside city to the rocky beach. The steps were steep and slippery, and Baekhyun clutched tightly to the railing as he went, teeth clenched against the bitterly cold wind, trying not to fall to his death onto the jagged rocks below.  
  
He took his last step from the stairs onto the beach just as the sun was coming up.  
  
The effect was dramatic and instantaneous. The first ray of gold breached the horizon, and instantly the waves, entire storeys high, sank calmly beneath the surface, leaving no evidence of their existence apart from overlapping concentric ripples, propagating across the now-glasslike surface. The roar of wind and water vanished, replaced by absolute tranquility. The cold air, hitting his face like knives, turned into the gentle warmth of morning sunlight.  
  
Baekhyun watched, utterly transfixed, as the water met the sky in a haze of amber. Goosebumps should be rising on his skin, but the warmth of the sun was lighting a steady fire within him, quelling the shock, calming his soaring heart. The image of the sun’s rays, reflected perfectly in the crystal calm water, was single the most beautiful and hopeful thing he’d ever seen.  
  
At that moment, he heard footsteps.  
  
He turned around, already knowing who would be there. Chanyeol was standing in front of him, dressed in that same pale robe, his entire form bathed in the amber glow of the sea and sky.  
  
“I had a feeling you’d be here,” Chanyeol said. He was smiling, and his eyes were warm. “I wanted to ask you something.”  
  
Baekhyun was still stunned, still overwhelmed, but he nodded.  
  
“We’re holding a ball at Esmis when I return,” Chanyeol said. “Eight days from now, it will be the festival of the phoenix. There will be thousands in attendance, all people of Aurum. There’ll be a banquet, there’ll be performances — I believe your friends will be there, too. Non-Aurumites aren’t usually invited, but… I would be honoured if you’d attend.”  
  
Eight days. The night of the full moon.  
  
Chanyeol was so earnest, his face framed in a gold halo, his manner so noble and sincere. “You’re like a completely different person every time I meet you,” Baekhyun complained, struggling to hold back tears. “It’s giving me whiplash.”  
  
Chanyeol kept waiting for an answer.  
  
“I… can’t come.”  
  
In an instant, Chanyeol’s face fell. The sight made Baekhyun’s chest ache. “Because it’s the night of the full moon?” Baekhyun nodded. “I was hoping you’d reconsidered. I thought you might want to stay.” His voice was shaking, heartbroken.  
  
At his words, the sun rose completely above the horizon, and the spell was broken. Suddenly the waves were back, crashing down, as though trying to beat the land into submission. The sky was lighter now, but the cold was back, and every hair on Baekhyun’s arms stood on end.  
  
“I’m sorry,” was all Baekhyun could say. Tears finally overflowed from his eyes, mixing with saltwater on his cheeks.  
  
“Why did you lead me on?” Chanyeol asked, and his face was twisted in hurt. “I bared myself to you.”  
  
A wave erupted mere metres from the shore, transforming his field of vision into a puddle of grey. Baekhyun couldn’t see through his blurry eyes, could barely hear him over the sound of the sea. All he could see was the light tan of his robe moving further and further away as he left Baekhyun alone on the banks.  
  
Baekhyun wanted to call after him, but his voice was stuck in his throat. The waves rose higher and higher, threatening to wash him away. He thought he could see the whitewater men, tortured faces forming in the white foam, desperate men clawing their way out from beneath the surface where they were eternally trapped. For a dangerous moment, Baekhyun was tempted. Tempted to take that last step forward, and let the water take him into its depths, make him submit to its power. But his legs felt weak, and Baekhyun stumbled backwards, landing hard on the rocks.  
  
He remained there, sitting on the rocks, his mind wracked by grief and confusion, body shivering and overwhelmed with exhaustion, long after Chanyeol had left him.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**V.**  
  
Eight days, seven nights. They stopped only once to perform on their return journey to Aurum — apart from that, it was hour after hour on the seemingly endless road.  
  
Baekhyun withdrew into himself, spending days studying the books he’d gotten from Minseok. He wasn’t sure why he was reading them, or if he would even be able to keep his magic once he left. Where he came from, people didn’t have magic. The other guys seemed to sense an uneasy change in him, and they kept a slight distance, not wanting to push him over the edge. Kyungsoo tried to start conversations with him on a few occasions, but he was naturally reticent, and Baekhyun didn’t initiate any interaction beyond the necessary. He mostly just wanted to be alone with his thoughts.  
  
The caravan was small and crowded. Baekhyun found himself cherishing the time he had alone, out in front with the reins and the horses and the deserted road stretching out before him.  
  
As the eighth day drew to a close, the group stopped on the outskirts of Esmis for dinner. The diner was a small, family-owned place, serving spicy curries and various types of flatbreads. They sat around a round table near the window, eating in tense silence.  
  
When they’d wiped their plates clean, the host served each of them a tall glass bearing a fruity, milky concoction.  
  
Baekhyun was the first to speak. “So… where are you guys going, after?”  
  
Everyone looked up, surprised. “The palace,” Sehun said. “For the Festival of the Phoenix.”  
  
Right. He’d forgotten that as (relatively prominent) citizens of Aurum, all four of them would have been invited to the celebrations that night.  
  
“We’ll be stopping by Thesor at a different spot this time,” Jongin cut in. “We’re taking the outer route, instead of the inland. You might have to find a different way in to the clearing.”  
  
“He’s a magician, he won’t have a problem,” Sehun dismissed.  
  
“Have you got a plan of any sort?” Yixing asked. “A route, or directions to follow?” Baekhyun shook his head.  
  
“Minseok told me not to, the magic in that place can’t be charted,” he said. “I’ll be fine, not to worry. Hope you guys have lots of fun at the festival.”  
  
Kyungsoo nodded curtly and looked away. A few of the others attempted smiles, that came out looking more like grimaces. They were all unhappy, but trying to hide it. Baekhyun could empathise.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
It was probably around ten by the time their caravan stopped by the wood, not on the same country road as before, but a stop close to the castle. The trees were rustling even on the windless night, but spaced further apart, and the ground here was wet and swampy. Through the window, Baekhyun could see the distorted reflection of full moon in a puddle, broken up by aerial roots and plant debris. The trees on the edge of the forest were leaning inwards, as though forming a doorway, welcoming him in.  
Jongin wound down the partition between the driver’s seat and the main carriage. “Here’s your stop.”  
  
“I guess this is bye then.” Baekhyun had been sitting tensely on his bed for the last hour, and now everyone watched in silence as he finally stood, feeling slightly light-headed. He cleared his throat. “Thanks for letting me stay with you guys. I won’t forget your kindness.”  
  
“Good luck,” Yixing said.  
  
Baekhyun picked up the figurine he’d been keeping tucked away in his rucksack, and slipped into his pocket. It was one thing he wanted to let himself keep. He was almost out of the caravan when somebody grasped his hand, and he turned to see Kyungsoo standing in the doorway.  
  
“Thank you, Baekhyun. I hope you’ll be happy.” Kyungsoo gave his palm a comforting squeeze and patted his back, smiling. Baekhyun’s chest constricted painfully at the sight, and he nodded, trying fervently not to think about the fact that he would not see them again.  
  
Then he turned and walked down the steps, into the woods.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
The wood was much less threatening this time. As Baekhyun walked, he could feel the soul of the forest thrumming underfoot. The last time, it had felt like a hostile place, full of danger ready to consume him. This time, it was as though the place could sense his newfound power, and reared back, taking on a subtler approach as it lured him into its depths.  
  
Way up above, the moon was so round, so bright, so full that it made Baekhyun anxious. Was he missing the critical moment? It couldn’t be, it had been half-ten when he’d stepped through the arch. Still the irrational fear bore down relentlessly. What if time passed differently in the forest? How was he going to know?  
  
As he crossed the marsh, he spotted something in the distance — a flickering light, pale and yellow, almost like a jack-o-lantern hanging from a branch. What did they call those things? Baekhyun tried to think back to the old stories. Will o’ the wisps. The traveller’s light. The light beckoned, and he followed.  
  
The ground was littered with crevices and sinkholes filled with quicksand, but Baekhyun navigated the terrain with an ease that surprised himself. Like Minseok had told him, his magic was helping him — he felt like could sense the ground beneath him, like his magic was mapping out a route for his mind and instincts to follow.  
  
His eyes were fixed on the glimmering light, darting ahead with remarkable agility, slipping into patches of shadow between branches only to emerge again a few feet away. Baekhyun’s body was moving as though of its own accord, light-footed and sure. It was cathartic; as he moved, he felt like his mind was floating away, hanging a few steps ahead of him, following the light with blind faith.  
  
Time blurred into the shadow and mist. It was an out-of-body experience for Baekhyun, but slowly, the light began to fade out, and his steps slowed. He wasn’t in the marsh anymore. He was standing on firm, solid soil, and there was grass. A few more steps forward, through a narrow gap between two poplars, and he was back in the clearing. Where it had all started.  
  
The light flickered out to nothing, and then it reappeared — glowing from within the depths of the well.  
  
The moon must almost be at its peak. Slowly, Baekhyun stepped forward and looked into its depths.  
  
The light was blindingly bright now, its halo pulsing with energy and bouncing off the roof of the well. He had the strongest urge to just reach out and touch it. And he would have, if the startling familiarity of the scene hadn’t made him hesitate. The figurine that Chanyeol had sent him, had depicted this exact scene. What did it mean? Had the traveller’s light led the artist to the well? The last time he’d gone through a well, there hadn’t been a guiding light of any kind. What had the old myths called them?  
  
_Better an ignis fatuus — than no illume at all._  
  
That’s what the light was called — an ignis fatuus. Baekhyun could hear his grandfather’s voice vividly in his head, telling stories by the fireplace when he was a child. Ignis Fatuus, or foolish fire. It was a deception — a light that tricked travellers and led them to temptation. Baekhyun just stared, transfixed, as the light kept shifting and growing, urging him to take the plunge.  
  
_Not all light is good_ , Minseok’s voice warned him in his mind. This was a foolish fire. It was trying to deceive him. If he stepped in now, he might drown for real.  
  
But he had to take the chance, didn’t he? He had to return. It was his responsibility. His duty to the community. His loyalty to his family.  
  
Now it was a chorus of voices echoing in his head. The voice of his mother, his father, his brother, the village elders. His teachers, his friends, even. This is your community, Baekhyun. The community is where you belong. You will be loyal to it, from the moment you were born to the moment you die.  
  
His mother’s face — tired, resilient, unconditionally loving. His father’s face — always frustrated by his radical tendencies, but fiercely protective and ultimately always trusting in him.  
  
It had only been two months, sixty days, since he’d been plunged into this world of unimaginable colour. Since he’d been walking through this dream.  
  
The moon was full. Baekhyun could sense it, in the way the magic in the wood seemed to shift slightly, opening its doors, emerging from its veil of secrecy. In the well, the light grew brighter still, searing into the back of his eyes.  
  
Baekhyun took a deep breath. It was now or never.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**VI.**  
  
At the base of castle hill, the festivities could be heard even before the first glimpse of the palace came into sight. There were people still running up the slopes towards the steps, above which fluted columns were visible, lit from below by flickering orange light.  
  
He walked slowly, making his ascent up the hill to the palace courtyard. On either side of the gates to the courtyard hung giant flags, emblazoned with the crest of the phoenix — the crest of Aurum. Just beyond the entryway, a thick crowd of people dressed in their brightest and finest were dancing and drinking and celebrating, under a canopy of gold and blue lanterns. After the calm of the forest, the festival was a brutal assault on his senses; from the kaleidoscopic lights to the the frenzied music and cacophony of shouting and singing from the crowd, it was a stampede waiting to happen.  
  
With difficulty, Baekhyun fought his way across the courtyard and arrived at the main steps. He followed the red carpet marked out by a pair of flaming torches, up the stairs towards the massive front doors of the palace building.  
  
A uniformed guard holding a scroll stopped him as he was trying to enter. “I’m sorry, sir, this reception is for VIP guests only.”  
  
He didn’t care. He needed to get in. But maybe — “Byun Baekhyun,” he said, with sudden certainty. “I’m on there, aren’t I?”  
  
The guard unrolled his scroll and ran a finger down the list. Baekhyun waited impatiently, craning his neck to try and look into the hall. “Yes, you are. Sincere apologies, sir.”  
  
“It’s alright.” Without waiting for the guard to step aside, Baekhyun slid past him and walked straight through the doorway and into the grand hall.  
  
The interior of the hall was as magnificent as anything he’d seen in Ozmion, but in a completely different way. Minimalistic gold-plated chandeliers hung from the high-vaulted ceilings, casting dim light over the body of the room. The walls were completely covered in gigantic murals of ceramic mosaic art, matching a polished floor of thickly grained white marble. Baekhyun’s eyes roamed the length of the hall, and finally came to rest at the far end.  
  
Chanyeol was standing at the base of the winding staircase, greeting and shaking hands with guests from a long receiving line. The hall was significantly less crowded than the courtyard outside, but there were still hundreds upon hundreds of people filling the stretch of room between him and where Chanyeol stood.  
  
When he turned his head, Baekhyun could see his face — and he saw him as he’d first done, back in the glade in the Seelie Court. Not the intimidating warrior he’d met in the forest at night, not the slightly moody boy in camouflage he’d saved at the wedding. Not the dangerous warlock he’d encountered at the Giant’s Carousel, nor the ethereal creature he’d met at the break of dawn. He saw a prince — distant, beautiful, and _good_. He wanted to commit the vision, the moment to memory — the slope of his neck, the straight line of his shoulders in the black suit, straps crossing at the front, lined with gleaming silver. The long lines of his legs. The softness of his orange-gold hair, swept back to expose a smooth forehead. The solidness of his palms and fingers, shaking a hand, strumming a guitar. The regality in his eyes and of his manner.  
  
There were at least thirty people in line to greet Chanyeol — the de facto leader of Aurum, since his father was at sea and his mother travelling. Baekhyun made his way across the room, weaving in between the elegantly dressed guests, and joined the back of the queue. He probably looked out of place, wearing the clothes he’d had on when he’d first landed in the forest, still sweaty from running, but he found he didn’t care. He _was_ out of place — as out of place as anyone could be in the grand hall of the court of Aurum. He wasn’t royalty, or anyone important. He wasn’t from Aurum, not even close. He was just Baekhyun, from a small village in the valley in the middle of nowhere.  
  
And yet he was an invited guest to the Phoenix festival — maybe the only non-Aurumite to be invited, with every right to be in the room. Every right to be in the queue to greet the prince, who had invited him personally, and for whom he’d made perhaps the most crucial decision of his life.  
  
The line moved slowly, as Chanyeol tried to give each guest his undivided attention. Finally, the last person stepped away to make way for Baekhyun, and it was his turn. Chanyeol came into focus, standing just a few metres away, and instantaneously, the rest of the room seemed to fade out and disappear.  
  
Baekhyun looked steadily ahead across the void, his eyes focused intensely as though pulled toward a centre of gravity. Chanyeol’s gaze was unwavering as he watched Baekhyun approach, his mouth set in a line, expression unchanging, betraying no kind of emotion.  
  
This could be the single most pivotal moment in his life. He would not mess it up.  
  
Baekhyun took a deep breath, steeling himself. Then in a few strides, he closed the distance between them, and as he arrived, bent to kiss Chanyeol’s hand. “Thank you for inviting me, your highness.” He looked up, meeting his eyes. “The festival is splendid.”  
  
For several beats, Chanyeol just looked at him, not speaking. Baekhyun’s heart began pounding in his chest, rattling so hard he thought it might burst out of his ribcage.  
  
Finally, Chanyeol spoke. “What are you doing here?” His features were still set in their expressionless cast, giving nothing away.  
  
“I decided to take you up on your invitation,” Baekhyun said, with as much blitheness as he could muster. “I heard I’m a VIP guest.”  
  
Chanyeol looked lost for a second, then he cleared his throat. “And are you… are you leaving soon?”  
  
Baekhyun’s voice caught in his throat. He was overcome with the urge to look away, but forced himself to keep looking the prince in the eye as he spoke. He could do this. He had already decided. He would have to choose his next words carefully. “Not if you won’t send me away.”  
  
There was another agonising pause, as Chanyeol looked at him, brows knotted, eyes still confused and still full of hurt. Baekhyun couldn’t understand why. “In a moment, there will be music,” he finally said. “Would you honour me with the first dance?”  
  
His words gave Baekhyun a glimmer of hope.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
The musicians finished tuning, and the guests were standing on the fringes of the room, waiting for the dance to begin. At the foot of the grand staircase, Chanyeol gave Baekhyun a reassuring glance, then extended a hand for him to take.  
  
Baekhyun’s fingers were cold as he placed his palm in Chanyeol's, and walked forwards into the centre of the room to lead the first dance. He hadn’t cared earlier, but now he was acutely aware of how run-down he must look, in his worn-out soft shirt and pants, blatantly out of place in a room of finery. The hall seemed larger than ever from where they stood, two lone figures in the centre of the massive space, hundreds of eyes watching their every move. Baekhyun was a performer, but there was something much more _severe_ about this kind of scrutiny, and it just made him want to shrivel up and disappear. It must be how Chanyeol felt all the time, Baekhyun realised. It would be impossible not to develop some kind of crippling self-consciousness, living life under such studied, unforgiving attention.  
  
Chanyeol placed a hand on his back, and Baekhyun reached up to hold onto his shoulder. Complete silence fell in the hall, and Baekhyun could almost hear the pounding of his heart bouncing off the hallowed ceilings.  
  
In that moment, Baekhyun was fervently grateful to Kyungsoo, Yixing, and Jongin and Sehun, for teaching him to dance at the many parties they’d attended while hopping from town to village to city. He’d have to look for them immediately after this, to thank them and tell them he’d decided not to leave.  
  
Chanyeol reached out to clasp his other hand with Baekhyun’s, intertwining their fingers.  
  
The musicians started to play — a simple, persistent drumbeat accompanied by an aggressive string motif, the sound expanding as more instruments began to join the ensemble, one by one. The song was rhythmic, almost anthemic — it was probably a song of the festival, Baekhyun thought.  
  
He matched Chanyeol’s steps closely, keeping his gaze fixed at an arbitrary point over his shoulder, watching the room moving around them in a blur of faces. Cold sweat was beading on his forehead, and he tried to focus only on the music and the warm, comforting pressure of Chanyeol’s hands on his body.  
  
This was why he stayed. Of all the surreal memories he’d made here, this was probably among the top.  
  
As the tempo of the song built up, the dance steps began to speed up and climb in intensity. The hall was really spinning now, a hazed-out blur of colourful walls and red — the attire of the people. There was only Chanyeol and him, and the faces and places orbiting them.  
  
And then it was over.  
  
It could have been two minutes, or twenty. Opposite Baekhyun, Chanyeol slowed down and came to a stop, for just a split second.  
  
With a deafening clash of cymbals, the musicians plunged straight into another set, starting with a frantically fast-paced gavotte. All around them, it was as though the hall had suddenly come to a life, in a flurry of colourful skirts and people jumping into dance, forming circles and lines across the space, completely swarming the centre of the room where Baekhyun stood, panting from exertion.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
“Where are we going?” Baekhyun asked. Chanyeol was grasping his hand tightly, leading him as they threaded through a series of corridors that branched off from the main hall. “Is it really alright for you to just leave like this?”  
  
“They won’t even notice,” Chanyeol said. He was striding so fast Baekhyun struggled to keep up. “We’re going to the store closet.”  
  
“Why, do my clothes not fit the dress code?” Baekhyun asked, mystified. Their dance was over — the dress code seemed like a strange thing to be worried about at that moment.  
  
“They’re fine for the festival, but we still need to get you knighted. For that I’d like you to be in something more… Aurum.”  
  
That something turned out to be a white shirt and suit of black leather, trimmed in silver and hung with glistening white-gold hardware. It was strikingly similar to what Chanyeol himself was wearing, but without the long jacket, and cut to Baekhyun’s exact size.  
  
Baekhyun stood in front of the mirror, watching his reflection with strange detachment. He looked like a completely different person — as fancy as any of the guests in the hall downstairs. He looked like he might actually be royalty, or capable of powerful magic.  
  
They were up in the prince’s chambers — a suite of rooms up in one of the towers— and Baekhyun was still slightly winded from the climb. Chanyeol was seated on a velvet sofa, facing a large gold-framed window that overlooked the cliffside. From where Baekhyun stood before the mirror, he couldn’t see his face.  
  
“Are you going to do it right now? Here?”  
  
“Yes,” Chanyeol said, not turning around.  
  
“Isn’t there some kind of procedure for this?”  
  
“There is an investiture, of course, but I have the authority to do this officially. And I want you to become a citizen of Aurum immediately.” Chanyeol stood and walked over to his display case, pulling out a long, thin sword with a gold handle. “No matter how long you’re staying, I want you to be a man of Aurum.” For some reason, his voice was strained, like he was only just holding himself together.  
  
Baekhyun looked at him carefully, and there were tears glimmering in his deer-like eyes, barely suppressed pain in the slight twist of his mouth.  
  
He’d probably been trained to be strong and collected all his life, Baekhyun realised. To keep up a calm facade no matter what he was feeling. He’d had the mask on every single time Baekhyun had met him. The thought made Baekhyun’s chest ache. His entire being yearned to give him comfort, any kind of comfort — he wanted to reach out and touch those trembling lips, to stroke his hair and tell him it was alright to break down and cry. It was alright to be vulnerable, human.  
  
“I’m not going anywhere, Chanyeol,” he said quietly. “I want to stay with you.”  
  
Chanyeol froze, still standing by his display case with his back facing Baekhyun. There was a long silence as Baekhyun waited for him to say something — anything. Then he turned around and came to sit on the chair facing Baekhyun, knighting sword hanging from a loosely clenched fist.  
  
Chanyeol took a deep breath. “What happened in the wood?”  
  
“I entered the forest, and a light showed me the way to the well of Thesor. And when I got there, it was in the water — exactly like the sculpture you’d given me.”  
  
“And it hadn’t been there the first time?”  
  
“No. And that made me pause, because it made me think about what it — the light — actually was. And why it guided me there.”  
  
“The traveller’s light,” Chanyeol said, in wonder.  
  
Baekhyun nodded. “I decided then. I’d known all along that I wanted to stay, but it took a foolish fire for me to realise that I could choose another path.”  
  
“Which is?”  
  
“Coming back to look for you.”  
  
Chanyeol shook his head, still not getting it. “But why would you do that?”  
  
“Because it’s what I want,” Baekhyun said slowly. Why couldn’t he understand? “I want you, with all my heart, but I’m worried that you might not want me. You didn’t look like you wanted me back.”  
  
Chanyeol looked aghast. “How could you say such a thing?”  
  
Baekhyun recalled Chanyeol’s face, his coldness when he’d first seen him back in the hall. He _seemed_ like he wanted to be with Baekhyun, but he couldn’t shake the thought. “What were you thinking, when I showed up in front of you in the hall?”  
  
“I was thinking that you’d left, or were leaving, and that I’d have to deal with this ache in my heart for the rest of my life.” Chanyeol sat up straight in his seat, looking away. “I was devastated. I’d been devastated ever since you spoke to me on the beach in Ozmion, and told me you wouldn’t come to the festival.”  
  
“I felt so lost,” Baekhyun said, and his eyes began to water. “My heart wanted to stay, but I thought I owed it to my community… and my family. To return. But I don’t think I can do it.”  
  
“The well isn’t going to go away,” Chanyeol said. “If you miss them, you could return. It might work.”  
  
Baekhyun shook his head. He’d been there, he’d stood in front of the well, and he knew its magic wasn’t going to work for him if he returned a third time. “I’m meant to stay.”  
  
“I won’t let you stay against your will. There must be another way back, if you want it, I will help you find it. I will do anything I can to find it.”  
  
He was so stubborn it was almost annoying. “That wasn’t what I meant. I meant that I _want_ to stay, Chanyeol. I found magic in this world, and I found happiness. I’d never had that back in the valley. I wanted to leave, but honestly, someday I’d probably have given up, and ended up living the life everyone planned for me.” The words were coming out quickly now, and Baekhyun couldn’t stop them if he wanted to. “And I want to stay for _you_. I loved you on first sight. You appeared before me like a star, in that meadow — since then I never wanted to be parted from you.” He’d done it. Bared his heart, multiple times, made his intentions clear. If Chanyeol didn’t want him, he’d have to do it now. Break him and then never see him again.  
  
He didn’t know what he would do if Chanyeol rejected him now.  
  
Chanyeol didn’t answer. He stood up and took hold of Baekhyun’s wrist, pulling him towards the centre of the room where a leather pew was set on the ground.  
  
“Kneel,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”  
  
Baekhyun knelt, inclining his head. Chanyeol extended the sword, and there was the light press of metal on his right shoulder, and then the left.  
  
“For services rendered to the kingdom, I pronounce you Byun Baekhyun of Aurum.”  
  
The sword was lifted from his shoulder, and Chanyeol took a step back.  
  
“Arise.”  
  
Baekhyun stood, wanting to demand a straight answer. But before he could speak, Chanyeol bent to kneel before him instead, laying his sword on the ground and looking up to meet Baekhyun’s eyes.  
  
“Baekhyun,” he said quietly. “I want you to rule with me.”  
  
Looking him in the eyes — bright even in the lowlight, Baekhyun knew that he’d made the right choice. He would follow no matter what the man asked for.  
  
“We could build the kingdom anew with firelight. Strengthen our seat of power. Achieve peace with Argentum, like you wanted,” he continued. “Will you do it with me?”  
  
Since landing in Aurum, he’d received nothing but blessing. Without all the help he’d received, he would never have emerged from the forest of Thesor that first day at nightfall. To serve the kingdom would be to rise from the ashes. The future he’d envisioned was just within reach.  
  
“I will,” Baekhyun said.  
  
  
  
***  
  
  
  
The skies cleared up the next morning.  
  
Chanyeol opened the doors to a balcony in his room, and Baekhyun stepped out to get his first look at the city of Esmis.  
  
From his vantage point, Baekhyun could see part of the palace, pale blue sandstone rising from the cliff, a cluster of towers joined by crossings and wall walks, shrouded in cloud. The steep fall to the harbour below, with the gold-hulled merchant ships with the painted sails drifting on the turquoise water, sparkling as waves caught the light.  
  
The courtyard directly below was surrounded by a massive colonnade, crimson vines bearing crimson flowers stark against the periwinkle stone. Staff were running to and from the building, cleaning up the aftermath of the festivities.  
  
To the west, he could see part of the city, with its whitewashed houses and buildings in hues of warm pastel, sand-coloured tents of the marketplace and terracotta stripes of the city’s roads winding in between. Kyungsoo and the rest of the guys would be staying somewhere near the bay, delivering the parcels they’d transported back from Ozmion, finding work to do before commencing their next journey. Baekhyun would have to look them up and tell them he’d decided to stay. He missed them, and he missed their life on the road, no matter how short-lived it had been. They were more than just his saviours — they were brothers, who’d taken him in like family.  
  
He would miss home too, and maybe a part of him would regret not going back. But Baekhyun was made for more, and the valley would never be able to understand that. Leaving the island had always been his goal, and now he’d done it. Sooner than he’d expected, maybe — but things rarely worked out the way one expected them to.  
  
And there was something he hadn’t told Chanyeol, something he’d seen pictured in the rippling water of the well. A vision of what would happen if he’d taken the plunge. An image of himself standing on the black shores of his homeland, waiting as a giant ship sailed into the harbour, bearing the flags of Aurum.  
  
He didn’t know if he could trust the image, or any part of its premise. But it didn’t matter. Baekhyun would not put his fate in the hands of a foolish fire — there was a path of his own that he wanted to choose, for reasons he held close to heart. One of which was standing before him, embodying warmth and strength and beauty.  
  
“I’m ready to rebuild.”  
  
Ready to rebuild the kingdom, rebuild his life and rebuild his legacy.  
  
Baekhyun reached out to take Chanyeol’s hand. It felt like coming home, and a wave of strength shot through his being, like entire forests were growing within him. The union of their clasped hands crackled with the amber of firelight.  
  
Together they would herald a glorious new era for the kingdom of the phoenix.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**_Epilogue_**  
  
Even for a ship as large as theirs, getting into the bay wasn’t an easy task. Waves, bigger and more aggressive than the waters of Ozmion, pushed at their vessel from all directions, threatening to overturn them, to pull them under.  
  
Entering the bay felt like heaving a sigh of relief. The waters were much gentler here, and it was safe to drop an anchor. The first of their crew — Chanyeol, Baekhyun, and the most senior of their entourage, took a rowboat to shore. After a solid six months of sailing and stops in countless ports, they’d finally reached the last of the islands at the end of the world, where the sea and sky were one.  
  
Baekhyun was the first one off the boat. As he stepped out onto the shore, the firm soles of his boots sank into the pitch-black sand, and he knew. He’d guessed since that day on the beach in Ozmion, when he’d caught a glimpse of the whitewater men straining beneath the surface. He’d known for sure since weeks ago, as he’d stared up at the shifting night sky and began to see familiar constellations slowly creeping towards them as their ship plowed eastwards through the seas.  
  
He was home at last.  
  
**END**


End file.
